Paul McCartney has aired a very specific grievance about his on-screen portrayal in Sam Mendes’ upcoming Beatles biopic.
The 84-year-old music legend took issue with his height relative to John Lennon during an appearance on the “Good Hang with Amy Poehler” podcast Wednesday. McCartney objected that Paul Mescal, 30, who plays him, appeared “markedly smaller” than Harris Dickinson, 30, who portrays Lennon, in a still from the Abbey Road crossing scene.
“We were all the same height, and Ringo [Starr] was a bit smaller,” McCartney said on the podcast. “And if you look at photos, we’re all the same height.”
McCartney said he had previously warned Mendes directly about this concern. “Sam Mendes is making the film. I said, ‘Sam, I’ve got just one thing that I need to say to you. You know, Paul’s a bit smaller,'” he shared.
The director’s response did not immediately resolve the matter. McCartney said Mendes sent him a production still showing the height disparity at the famous zebra crossing, prompting an urgent text from the former Beatle.
“Sam! Smaller? Don’t do this! You said you wouldn’t do it,” McCartney wrote to him.
Mendes fired back that the apparent difference came merely from “the stride pattern,” according to McCartney. A follow-up image showed the actors at equal height.
This was not McCartney’s first clash over being depicted as diminutive next to Lennon. He recalled similar frustration with Sam Taylor-Johnson’s 2009 film “Nowhere Boy,” where Thomas Brodie-Sangster played McCartney and Aaron Taylor-Johnson played Lennon.
“The John character, who she later married, Aaron — he’s bigger than me in the film,” McCartney explained to Poehler. “My character is kind of wimpy. Smaller than John. John knocks me to the floor. And it’s like, ‘Sam, this is not true!'”
McCartney remembered Taylor-Johnson’s “only explanation” for the size disparity: she was making a movie, not a documentary.
“And I thought, ‘Mm. Well, I don’t like that explanation,'” he noted, adding he “couldn’t do anything” because filming had wrapped.
“There was I, little Paul. John, the great big hero, and it’s like: ‘No! It’s not true,'” he added.
Despite this friction, McCartney has engaged closely with Mescal’s preparation for the role. In May, he said he taught the Irish actor how to play guitar for the part.
“He came into this office and I thought, ‘Well, I’ll show him how to do Blackbird,'” McCartney shared. “So I picked up the guitar and started playing… and he played along exactly! I think he knew it better than I did!”
“It was amazing how studied and how well-educated he was about me. So, yeah, I thought, OK, I’ll leave you to it.”
Mescal had previously met McCartney to prepare for the biopic, telling IndieWire last year that the Grammy Award winner was “an extraordinary man.”
“It’s a crazy sentence to say that I’ve spent time with that man, let alone play him,” the “Hamnet” star said, confirming he “absolutely” will be doing his own singing.
Mendes’ “The Beatles – A Four-Film Cinematic Event” will comprise four interconnected movies, each centered on a different band member. Barry Keoghan plays Ringo Starr and Joseph Quinn plays George Harrison. The ensemble also includes Saoirse Ronan as Linda McCartney, Anna Sawai as Yoko Ono, Harry Lloyd as George Martin and James Norton as Brian Epstein.
The entire four-film project is scheduled for release in April 2028.