Lucille Ball's daughter was initially hesitant for Javier Bardem to play Desi Arnaz because she thought he was 'too big' and 'magnificent'

• Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz's daughter Lucie Arnaz initially thought Javier Bardem was "too big" and "magnificent" to play her dad.
• Lucie said she eventually saw that Bardem had the "gravitas" she felt was needed to play Arnaz.

Casting Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz for Aaron Sorkin's film "Being the Ricardos" was a complicated endeavor.

The couple's daughter, Lucie Arnaz, who executive produced the film with her brother Desi Arnaz Jr., once said she "couldn't have taken it" if Nicole Kidman looked too much like her mother. But she revealed in a new interview with The Hollywood Reporter that she felt differently when considering Javier Bardem for the part of her father.

In a joint interview with Bardem, Lucie admitted that when someone first mentioned casting Bardem as Arnaz, she thought: "Oh, he's too big, he's too … magnificent."

"My father was slimmer, he was a wisp of a thing compared to Javier, and then I said: 'Their profiles are different. Geez, I don't know,'" she continued.

But as time went by, no one else felt right for the part, according to Lucie. "My dad was so complicated and incredibly multifaceted," she said. "His personality and his talents, to pull that off, you have to have a certain amount of maturity, a certain gravitas, if you will."

Lucie explained that Arnaz had been through "revolutions" and built his life in the US from "absolutely nothing." The actor who played him in Sorkin's film would also have to have Arnaz's instincts, humor, and charm, she said.

She wasn't convinced Bardem could embody her father, even though she was "a huge fan" of his previous work. Then, someone sent Lucie footage of Bardem being interviewed that completely changed her mind. "I went, 'That's my dad. Wow, oh my God, that's my dad,'" she recalled, pointing to the "charm," "effusiveness," and "joy" Bardem shared with Arnaz.

"He loved living, he loved the world. He loved the ocean and fishing and music and sex and cooking," Lucie said of her father, who starred on the classic sitcom "I Love Lucy" with Ball.

When Lucie eventually watched "Being the Ricardos," she was thrilled with Bardem's performance as Arnaz. "I saw the man, the humor, the charm, the sex appeal, the intuitiveness, his ability to arbitrate, which was an amazing quality," Lucie said of watching Bardem's performance in the film.

Lucie added that she was "in tears" by the end of the film because she felt "so very grateful" for the project and for how Kidman and Bardem captured the "essence" of her parents' relationship perfectly.