Paul McCartney Objects to Beatles Films: Mescal Is Too Short

Paul McCartney has texted director Sam Mendes to complain that Paul Mescal, the actor playing him in four upcoming Beatles films, appears shorter on screen than the actor playing John Lennon. "Sam! Smaller? Don't do this! You said you wouldn't do it," McCartney wrote, recounting the exchange on the "Good Hang" podcast.

What is McCartney's complaint?

Mendes is directing four Beatles films — one centered on each band member — with Mescal as McCartney, Harris Dickinson as John Lennon, Joseph Quinn as George Harrison and Barry Keoghan as Ringo Starr. Sony Pictures backs the project, titled "The Beatles – A Four-Film Cinematic Event," which is now in the middle of a year-long production.

McCartney's objection is physical accuracy. "We were all the same height!" he declared on the podcast. "We were all the same height, and Ringo was a bit smaller. And if you look at photos, we're all the same height."

The evidence came directly from the set. Mendes sent McCartney a still from filming on the Abbey Road crossing. In it, the McCartney character reads as "markedly smaller" than the Lennon character.

"Guess what?" McCartney said of Mescal. "He is smaller than the guy who plays John. 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 [Mescal is] a bit smaller.' I don't know how Sam's gonna deal with it."

Has this happened before?

This is not McCartney's first dispute over screen height. He raised the same objection with Sam Taylor-Johnson, director of 2009's "Nowhere Boy," which starred Aaron Taylor-Johnson as a teenage John Lennon and Thomas Brodie-Sangster as McCartney.

"The John character, who she later married, Aaron — he's bigger than me in the film," McCartney said. "My character is kind of wimpy. Smaller than John. John knocks me to the floor. And it's like, 'Sam, this is not true!'"

Taylor-Johnson's answer did not satisfy him. "Her only explanation, bless her, because she's still a good friend, she said, 'This is a movie, it's not a documentary.' And I thought, 'Well, I don't like that explanation.' But I couldn't do anything, because by now she'd made the film. There was I, little Paul. John, the great big hero, and it's like: No! It's not true."

When will the four films arrive?

All four movies will be released theatrically in April 2028, according to the source. Producer Pippa Harris, speaking at the BFI London Film Festival, explained the release logic.

"We want people to be able to experience them in the cinema at the same during the same period," Harris said, while noting she does not expect audiences to "see all four films on the same day."

She added: "Within the same month — you might see one a week, or you might see one weekend and two the next and one the next. However you see it, I think our hope is that people will see all four films."

What does this change for the films?

Nothing is confirmed yet about how Mendes will address the height gap, and McCartney himself said, "I don't know how Sam's gonna deal with it." The public complaint, made while production continues, puts fresh pressure on the director to resolve a detail his star subject has now flagged twice — once to Taylor-Johnson in 2009, and again by text from the Abbey Road set.