More Brits Join The Cast Of Sam Mendes’ Beatles Quartet

We know Sam Mendes is set to make four biopics following each of The Beatles, and we also know the four stars cast in the main roles of John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr and George Harrison. That’s Babygirl star Harris Dickinson, Gladiator II‘s Paul Mescal, Saltburn‘s Barry Keoghan and Stranger Things‘ Joseph Quinn respectively – two Irishmen, two Brits and no Scousers. Alas.

With more Brits added to the cast and filming set to take place all throughout 2026, here’s everything we know so far.

The Beatles Biopics: Plot, Cast, Release Date Rumours & More

Sam Mendes isn’t making one biopic about The Beatles. Oh no, that would be too easy. Instead the Skyfall director is making four: one for each band member, told from their perspective. Mendes will direct all four, which will stand alone but intersect to ‘tell the story of the greatest band in history’. And since everyone will star in each film, they are being filmed back-to-back throughout 2026.

After months of rumours, the news was officially revealed at CinemaCon on Monday 31 March 2025, when the Oscar-winning director was joined by his four lead stars on stage. Flash forward to November, and filming reported commenced.

Previous films depicting the band include Backbeat (1994), Nowhere Boy (2009) and I Wanna Hold Your Hand (1978), but this is the first time all four parties – Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr and the families of the late John Lennon and George Harrison – have granted the rights to the band’s story, as well as music rights to a scripted film. Sony Pictures Entertainment is handling the financial side and distribution.

Paul Mescal is Paul McCartney in Columbia Pictures THE BEATLES – A Four-Film Cinematic Event. (© Chiabella James)

What Will Happen?

Four films and four stories, though naturally they will intersect. Each film in the Beatles quartet will focus on one of the bandmembers: Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, John Lennon and George Harrison.

‘They’re four very different human beings,’ Mendes explained at CinemaCon. ‘Perhaps this is a chance to understand them a little more deeply. But together, all four films will tell the story of the greatest band in history.

‘I just felt the story of the band was too huge to fit into a single movie, and that turning it into a TV mini-series just somehow didn’t feel right,’ Mendes added.

He has drawn on the experts for help, notably Bob Spitz who penne The Beatles: The Biography in 2005, a definitive text detailing the rise of the band and the lives of the members within it. Other writers in the credits include Tony and Olivier-winning playwright Jez Butterworth, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011) and Conclave (2024) writer Peter Straughan and Britain’s most in-demand TV writer of late Jack Thorne (Adolescence, The Hack, Lord of the Flies, etc.).

Barry Keoghan is Ringo Starr in Columbia Pictures THE BEATLES – A Four-Film Cinematic Event. (© Lloyd Wakefield)

The Cast

Firstly, we have our Fab Four:

• Paul Mescal as Sir Paul McCartney
• Barry Keoghan as Ringo Starr
• Harris Dickinson as John Lennon
• Joseph Quinn as George Harrison

And looking at the early images, you’ll notice the use of prosthetics and make-up to bring the stars – all around 30 years old, with Keoghan the eldest (33) and Dickinson the youngest (29) – in line with the famous Fab Four we know.

All four stars have come into their own in recent years with high-profile roles across film and TV. Mescal is the most notable, and a coup considering his preference for independent cinema (excluding Gladiator II, of course), having shot to fame for roles across The Lost Daughter (2021), Aftersun (2022) and All of Us Strangers (2023). That said his director bingo card is filling up, ticking off Ridley Scott, Chloe Zhao and now Mendes.

Meanwhile Keoghan is best known for his twisted role in Saltburn (2023), as well s Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk and Yorgos Lanthimos’s The Killing of a Sacred Deer (both 2017) and The Banshees of Inisherin (2022). Dickinson rose to fame in The King’s Man (2021), Triangle of Sadness (2022) and Where the Crawdads Sing (2022), while The Iron Claw (2023) and Babygirl (2024) increased his international acclaim. Best known for his part in Stranger Things (2022), Quinn is the freshest face on the bill, though he joined Mescal in Gladiator II and has since appeared in Warfare and The Fantastic Four: The First Steps (both 2025).

Harris Dickinson is John Lennon in Columbia Pictures THE BEATLES – A Four-Film Cinematic Event. (© Chiabella James)

They will be joined by The Beatles’ love interests, with suitably high profile stars taking on the roles.

• Saoirse Ronan as Linda McCartney
• Anna Sawai as Yoko Ono
• Aimee Lou Wood as Pattie Boyd
• Mia McKenna-Bruce as Maureen Starkey

Again, all are around the age of 30 and have garnered stellar credits across the board, most notably Oscar-nominated Ronan. Japanese star Sawai is best known for television roles like Giri/Haji (2019), Pachinko (2022) and Shogun (2024), while Manchester’s Aimee Lou Wood rose to fame in Netflix’s Sex Education (2019-23) and solidified her international acclaim in The White Lotus season 3 (2025). Child star Mia McKenna-Bruce has distinguished herself recently with roles in How to Have Sex (2023) and Agatha Christie’s Seven Dials (2026).

And that’s not the end of the distinguished names. See the rest of the cast we know so far below:

• James Norton as Brian Epstein, the band’s influential manager
• Harry Lloyd, as George Martin, legendary producer
• Lucy Boynton as Jane Asher, actress and girlfriend of Paul McCartney
• Morfydd Clark as Cynthia Lennon, John Lennon’s first wife
• Farhan Akhtar as Ravi Shankar, influential Indian composer
• Harry Lawtey as Stuart Sutcliffe, The Beatles’ original bass guitarist
• David Morrissey as Jim McCartney, Paul’s father
• Leanne Best as Mimi Smith
• Bobby Schofield as Neil Aspinall
• Daniel Hoffmann-Gill as Mal Evans
• Arthur Darvill as Derek Taylor
• Adam Pally as Allen Klein

Release Date

All four films will be released simultaneously on 7 April 2028 in what is being described as a major cinematic event.

Mendes previously said he is ‘honoured to be telling the story of the greatest rock band of all time’ and ‘excited to challenge the notion of what constitutes a trip to the movies,’ adding the quartet of films would mark the ‘first bingeable movie experience’ (which is necessary ‘to get people out of the house,’ he says – that is, away from streaming and into the cinemas).

In the meantime, filming is taking place across the UK throughout 2026.