Sir Paul McCartney laid down the law when it came to ‘one thing’ regarding Sir Sam Mendes’ Beatles films.
Four biopics will be released in 2028, each focusing on the life of a different Beatle in a cinematic crossover event.
Playing the music icons are Paul Mescal, Harris Dickinson, Barry Keoghan and Joseph Quinn – but Sir Paul wasn’t pleased with the lineup.
‘We were all the same height,’ he insisted to Amy Poehler on her Good Hang podcast. ‘Ringo was a bit smaller, and if you look at photos, we’re all the same height.’
Unfortunately for the Hey Jude legend, he keeps being portrayed as shorter than John Lennon.
‘Guess what? [Paul Mescal’s] smaller than the guy who plays John!’ Sir Paul exclaimed about the casting.
The Hamnet star, 30, is an accurate Beatle height at around 5ft 11, while Harris, 30, is 6ft 2 – over three inches taller than Lennon.
Sir Paul continued: ‘I said, “Sam [Mendes], I’ve got just one thing I need to say to you. You know, Paul’s a bit smaller than me!” So I don’t know how Sam’s going to deal with it.
‘He sent me a picture, a still from the filming they were doing and they’re crossing the Abbey Road crossing, and the Paul character is markedly smaller!’
The 19-time Grammy winner begged the director not to make him shorter, pleading, ‘You said you wouldn’t do it!’
Amy joked that, due to Sir Paul’s bare feet in the iconic Abbey Road picture, they couldn’t even use ‘lifts’ to make him appear taller.
Apparently, Sam, who directed Skyfall and American Beauty, reassured him they’d all be the same height after some photo editing.
Turns out this isn’t the first time Sir Paul has been given a height disadvantage on screen as he reflected on 2009’s Nowhere Boy.
The Lennon-inspired biopic, directed by Sam Taylor-Johnson, starred a then 18-year-old Aaron Taylor-Johnson as Lennon in his breakthrough role.
He was taller than his co-star, Thomas Brodie-Sangster, who played a ‘kind of wimpy’ Sir Paul, according to the singer himself.
At one point, Lennon knocks his ‘smaller’ pal to the floor, in a moment that is entirely fabricated.
‘Her only explanation, bless her because she’s still a good friend, she said, “This is a movie. It’s not a documentary.” I thought, “Well, I don’t like that explanation.”
‘But I couldn’t do anything because she [by then] she’d made the film,’ Sir Paul continued. ‘There was I, little Paul, you know?
‘John, the great big hero and it’s like, “No! It’s not true!”‘
At least in the new films, he’ll still be taller than Sir Ringo, as actor Barry Keoghan is apparently 5ft 8.