So they were both certainly outsiders, outliers, but Desi’s story is a really amazing one,” Poehler states. They weren’t in the room making decisions. “What Lucy and Desi shared was that a woman and a Cuban-American man of color in the 1950s weren’t allowed to be part of the room. But Arnaz, who immigrated to America from Cuba as a teen, was a sharp businessman and producer who changed the way episodic TV is filmed after he suggested “I Love Lucy” use film and three cameras (he also had a no retakes policy). Despite their success with “I Love Lucy” and their production company Desilu, Arnaz’s story is oftentimes forgotten or runs secondary to Ball’s achievements. It was important for Poehler to give Arnaz his equal due as well. SEE ‘Lucy and Desi’ editor Robert Martinez: Finding audiotapes on a shelf ‘ended up being a big reason why this project feels so intimate’ “Once we got Desi’s and Lucy’s voice in the film, it changed the way, I think, how we feel about the film because we really want Lucy and Desi to feel present, alive and of this moment because they certainly are.” “ opened her doors for us, literally, and they found this very special box of stuff that had been tucked away,” Poehler says. Ball had recorded extensive interviews with Ladies’ Home Journal with plans for an eventual book, while Arnaz had recorded an audiobook of his own memoir. Key to telling their love story was unearthed audiotapes from Ball and Arnaz themselves, shared by their daughter Lucie Arnaz Luckinbill.

“The love story of Lucy and Desi became the framing element for the film and their actual love story is kind of a three-act structure,” she notes. The actress, who makes her documentary directorial debut with the Amazon Prime Video film, soon realized that the way in was to center it on Ball and Arnaz’s love story of two unlikely people who came together and changed each other’s lives and TV forever.

Desi and lucy