Paul McCartney Reveals His Complaint About Paul Mescal's Beatles Movie & John Lennon's Height

Paul McCartney's Complaint About Paul Mescal's Beatles Movie Is The Same One He's Had For 17 Years

Published Oct 20, 2026, 9:30 AM EDT

Richard Craig is a Senior Author at Screen Rant covering film and TV. Richard has also written extensively about horror and film soundtracks, contributing a chapter to the first major academic collection on the folk horror genre, The Routledge Companion to Folk Horror. Richard is also a performing musician and holds an MA in Music and Sound Art.

Paul McCartney has spent decades watching the Beatles' story become the stuff of movie legend, but one recurring detail in Hollywood's retellings continues to irritate him. With director Sam Mendes preparing the ambitious The Beatles – A Four-Film Cinematic Event about the Fab Four, the legendary musician has already raised an objection – and it concerns something that has been bugging him for years.

Production on Sam Mendes’s Beatles biopics are underway, and Paul McCartney has already spotted a problem – one that brings back frustrating memories of a previous Beatles-related biopic released in 2009. It's an amusingly specific complaint from a musician whose career has been documented from practically every conceivable angle.

However, McCartney's frustration also raises an interesting question about how filmmakers portray real people. A seemingly insignificant visual detail can begin to distort the audience's perception of a historical figure. After all, a small change in how two characters are presented can subtly influence the dynamics of their relationship.

Having already lost this particular argument once, McCartney isn't keen to watch history repeat itself. This time, he's taken his concerns straight to Mendes – and the director has already received a very pointed message from the former Beatle.

Why Paul McCartney Is Annoyed About Paul Mescal's Beatles Biopics

The issue is the height of the actors. Speaking on Amy Poehler's Good Hang podcast in October 2026, McCartney explained that the Beatles were roughly the same height, with Ringo Starr being a little shorter. "We were all the same height," he insisted. "Ringo was a bit smaller, and if you look at photos, we're all the same height" (via The Wrap).

His frustration dates back to Nowhere Boy, Sam Taylor-Johnson's 2009 drama about Lennon's adolescence. Aaron Taylor-Johnson played Lennon, while Thomas Brodie-Sangster portrayed a teenage McCartney. According to McCartney, the casting and staging made him look noticeably smaller and weaker than his future songwriting partner.

"Sam Taylor-Wood did a film called Nowhere Boy, and the John character [...] he's bigger than me in the film. My character is kind of wimpy, smaller. And it's like, Sam, this is not true," McCartney recalled.

McCartney particularly objected to a scene in which Lennon knocks his character to the floor, reinforcing an impression of Lennon as the physically dominant figure (via Variety). He raised the issue with Taylor-Wood, who reportedly replied, "This is a movie. It's not a documentary." McCartney remained unconvinced, joking that he was left as "little Paul" while Lennon became "the great big hero."

Seventeen years later, he's spotted the same problem in Mendes' production. Paul Mescal, who plays McCartney, appears smaller than Harris Dickinson, who portrays Lennon, in an image recreating the Beatles' famous Abbey Road crossing.

McCartney bemoaned, "Guess what, he's smaller than the guy who plays John," he recalled saying of Mescal. After receiving a production still, he texted the director: "Sam! Smaller? Don't do this! You said you wouldn't do it."

Mendes reportedly explained that the difference came down to the actors' stride patterns and subsequently sent another image in which the band appeared more evenly matched.

What We Know About The Sam Mendes Movies

The Beatles – A Four-Film Cinematic Event is an unusually ambitious undertaking. Rather than squeezing the band's history into a single feature, Mendes is directing four interconnected theatrical films, each told from the perspective of a different Beatle. Sony Pictures announced the project with the backing of Apple Corps and the surviving Beatles, alongside the families of Lennon and George Harrison.

The central cast features Mescal as McCartney, Dickinson as Lennon, Joseph Quinn as Harrison, and Barry Keoghan as Starr. The four stories will intersect, offering different perspectives on the band's rise and the relationships that shaped its history.

The project also marks the first time the Beatles and their representatives have granted full life-story and music rights for a scripted film. The films are scheduled for a theatrical release in April 2028, with Sony planning to release all four within the same month. The scale of the production gives Mendes plenty of opportunities to explore the Beatles beyond the familiar greatest-hits narrative, but it also places a considerable responsibility on the filmmakers to make the four perspectives feel consistent in The Beatles – A Four-Film Cinematic Event.

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  John Lennon

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  Anne-Marie Duff

  Julia Lennon

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  Kristin Scott Thomas

  Mimi Smith

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  David Threlfall

  George Toogood Smith