Paul McCartney is set to be played by another Paul in the upcoming Beatles four-part biopic, directed by Sam Mendes – and it's none other than the very-in-demand Paul Mescal, who recently starred in Gladiator II and Hamnet.
Yet, much like how Timothée Chalamet and Monica Barbaro had to hone their guitar skills to play Bob Dylan and Joan Baez, respectively, Mescal has confirmed that he's well on his way to learning some Lennon–McCartney–penned classics on guitar. Not only that, he once got to jam with McCartney in preparation for the role.
“I think he has fundamentally and forever changed the world,” Mescal tells Rolling Stone, referring to Macca. “I will never forget it as long as I live. I got to play Blackbird with him.
“That's the coolest thing that my job has ever afforded me. I was kind of having an out-of-body experience. I was in drama school nine years ago and [now] I'm sat opposite Paul McCartney, and we're playing Blackbird.
“To be sat in front of somebody playing one of the most famous, most covered songs of all time, but then to be sat in front of the person who... that came out of his mind. I was like, ‘I love my job.’
“I've been learning left-handed so it's been pretty intense,” Mescal confirms. “It was just a very special, special thing.”
Alongside Mescal, the other actors playing the Fab Four are Barry Keoghan as Ringo Starr, Harris Dickinson as John Lennon, and Joseph Quinn as George Harrison, with four separate-yet-interconnected movies slated to represent the Beatles' story from each member's perspective.
In more recent McCartney news, the story of his stolen Höfner 500/1 bass guitar, which went missing for 50 years, is set to be told in an all-new feature-length documentary.
