Paul McCartney Has One Big Complaint About the New Beatles Biopics
Paul McCartney has seen the early images from Sam Mendes' upcoming Beatles movies, and there is one detail he cannot let go: his height.
The 84-year-old music legend opened up about the four-film project during an appearance on Amy Poehler's podcast "Good Hang," which was released Tuesday. When Poehler asked which Beatle was the tallest, McCartney set the record straight. "We were all the same height," he said, adding that Ringo Starr was "a bit smaller," TheWrap reported.
A Text to Sam Mendes
McCartney said Mendes sent him a still of the cast recreating the famous Abbey Road crosswalk photo. In it, the actor playing McCartney looked noticeably shorter than the actor playing John Lennon.
"Guess what? He's smaller than the guy who plays John!" McCartney said. He quickly fired off a text to the director: "Sam! Smaller! Don't do this! You said you wouldn't do it!"
Mendes reassured him that it was "just the stride pattern" and sent over another still in which the two actors appeared to be the same height.
"If you look at photos, we're all the same height!" McCartney said, according to Consequence.
Not the First Time
McCartney said he ran into the same issue with "Nowhere Boy," the 2009 film directed by Sam Taylor-Johnson about Lennon's early years. In that movie, Aaron Taylor-Johnson played Lennon and Thomas Brodie-Sangster played a young McCartney.
"My character is kind of wimpy, smaller than John," McCartney recalled. He said he also objected to a scene where the Lennon character knocks his character to the floor. When he raised his concerns with the director, she told him, "This is a movie. It's not a documentary."
Poehler said it must be "strange" to watch actors play you on screen.
Four Films, One Band
Mendes is directing four separate films, each told from the perspective of one band member. All four are set to hit theaters in April 2028, a release Mendes has called the "first binge-able theatrical experience." Jez Butterworth, Peter Straughan and Jack Thorne were reported in May to be writing the films.
Paul Mescal plays McCartney, Harris Dickinson plays Lennon, Joseph Quinn plays George Harrison and Barry Keoghan plays Starr, according to AOL.
McCartney is not the only Beatle keeping a close eye on the project. Starr has said he spent two days going over the script with Mendes "line by line" and gave "extensive" notes to make sure he and his first wife, Maureen Starkey Tigrett, were portrayed accurately. He said an early draft "had nothing to do with Maureen and I," and that he told Mendes, "We would never do that." He said he is now satisfied with how he is depicted.
More From the Interview
The wide-ranging conversation also touched on lighter topics. McCartney grew emotional while remembering his late wife, Linda McCartney, and said he would love to collaborate with Bob Dylan but feels too nervous to call him.
He praised Billie Eilish, though he said he would not want to have written her songs. He also said he once wished he had written Billy Joel's "Just the Way You Are," and named "Here, There and Everywhere" as his favorite song he has written. In a rapid-fire round, he picked the 1960s as the best decade for music and said the last concert he attended was Brandi Carlile's. His daughter, Stella McCartney, also appeared on the episode.
McCartney also said he considers himself a fan of the Beatles' music, and that the more he thinks about it, the bigger a fan he becomes. It is a catalog he still loves to play. Over the summer, he performed a Beatles classic for the first time in 62 years at Taylor Swift's wedding.
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