Paul McCartney is unhappy with how his height is depicted in Sam Mendes’ upcoming four-part Beatles biopic.
“We were all the same height and Ringo [Starr] “And if you look at the photos, we’re all the same height,” McCartney said on the “Have Fun With Amy Poehler” podcast on Wednesday.
The legendary musician revealed that from the first images of the film, Paul Mescal, who played him, looked “smaller” than Harris Dickinson, who played the late John Lennon.
“Sam Mendes is producing the movie. I said, ‘Sam, there’s only one thing I have to tell you. You know, Paul is a little younger,'” McCartney, 84, shared on the podcast.
“I don’t know how Sam will handle this,” he continued of the director. “He sent me a photo, a shot from a shoot they were doing; they’re passing the Abbey Road junction and the Paul character is noticeably smaller. I texted him: ‘Sam! Smaller? Don’t do this! You said you wouldn’t do it.'”
According to McCartney, Mendes insisted in his response that the apparent height inaccuracy was solely due to the “step pattern”.
“Then he sent me another one where they were equal,” McCartney said.
McCartney recalled being equally disappointed with Sam Taylor-Johnson’s 2009 film “Nowhere Boy,” which starred Thomas Brodie-Sangster as McCartney and Aaron Taylor-Johnson as Lennon.
“Aaron, the character of John, whom she later marries, is older than me in the movie,” McCartney told Poehler. “My character is a little weak. He’s smaller than John. John puts me down. ‘Sam, this isn’t right!’ “he says.”
McCartney said Sam’s “only explanation” for the size disparity at the time was that he was making a film, not a documentary.
“And I thought, ‘Hmm, I don’t like that statement,'” McCartney recalled, noting that he “couldn’t do anything” about it since the film had already been completed.
“There was me, little Paul. John, the great big hero, and I was saying: ‘No! This isn’t right,'” he added.
Mendes’ “The Beatles – Four-Movie Cinema Event” will feature four films, each about a different member of the beloved British rock band, all of which will be released in April 2028.
30-year-old Mescal will portray McCartney, 30-year-old Dickinson will portray Lennon, Barry Keoghan will portray Starr, and Joseph Quinn will portray George Harrison.
Other confirmed cast members include Saoirse Ronan as Linda McCartney, Anna Sawai as Yoko Ono, Harry Lloyd as George Martin and James Norton as Brian Epstein.
In an IndieWire interview last year, Mescal confirmed that he met McCartney to prepare for the biopic, calling the Grammy Award winner “an extraordinary guy.”
“It’s a crazy statement to say that I spent time with that guy, let alone played him,” the “Hamnet” star said, before confirming that he would “definitely” sing his own song.
In May, McCartney told the BBC that he had taught Mescal how to play guitar.
“He came into this office and I thought, ‘I’m going to show him how to make Blackbird,'” McCartney said. “So I picked up the guitar and started playing… and he just sang along! I think he knew it better than I did!”
“It was surprising how hard-working and so well-educated he was about me. So yeah, I thought, okay, I’ll leave you to it.”