Cast announced for upcoming Beatles biopics as stars announced to play Fab Four

The cast of the upcoming four Beatles biopics has been announced in Las Vegas.

Irish actors Paul Mescal and Barry Keoghan, and British stars Harris Dickinson and Joseph Quinn are set to portray The Beatles band members in four upcoming films.

Each of the movies will showcase one of the members of The Fab Four, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr, and be directed by British filmmaker Sir Sam Mendes.

Director Sir Sam is perhaps most well-known for his films American Beauty (1999), Skyfall (2012), Spectre (2015), 1917 (2019) and Empire of Light (2022). His films have won several prestigious accolades, including Oscars and Golden Globes.

Rumours of the casting had been floated as far back as June 2024, and the report was (almost) spot on.

All the roles were cast as the rumours suggested, except Charlie Rowe, who was initially rumoured to be attached to the role of George Harrison.

The surviving members of the Beatles, Starr and McCartney, released a statement on the announcement of the film's production saying: "The dating cadence of the films, the details of which will be shared closer to release, will be innovative and groundbreaking".

We break down the casting choices for the biopics, the projects they have worked on, and what they have said at the casting announcement.

Paul Mescal - Sir Paul McCartney

The Irish star, 29, has been one of the fastest-rising stars in the last five years.

He shot to stardom during the pandemic for his role in the BBC miniseries Normal People, based on the novel of the same name by Irish author Sally Rooney, as love interest Connell Waldron opposite Daisy Edgar-Jones' Marianne Sheridan.

He has continued to mark out his place within the industry following his starring role in 2022's Aftersun, which earned him Oscar and Bafta nominations for best actor as a father struggling with his mental health while on holiday with his daughter.

His appearance in the romantic fantasy film All of Us Strangers alongside Irish actor Andrew Scott has garnered him further recognition and a British Independent Film Award for best-supporting performance.

Mescal also won an Olivier Award for a stage adaptation of A Streetcar Named Desire before starring in Gladiator II, directed by Sir Ridley Scott, as an arena fighter who tries to bring down two maniacal emperors.

Listed in Forbes' 30 Under 30 in 2021, this feels like a natural next stop in his rising stardom.

Barry Keoghan - Sir Ringo Starr

The 32-year-old Irish actor has received praise for his role in The Killing Of A Sacred Deer and The Banshees Of Inisherin, both opposite Colin Farrell. The latter saw him win the Best Supporting Actor prize in 2023 for his role in Martin McDonagh-directed film.

Keoghan also received nominations for the role from the Academy Awards, Golden Globes and Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Awards.

He was nominated for a Rising Star Award in 2019 and went on to receive two further Bafta nods for the Irish crime drama Calm With Horses and the black comedy Saltburn.

His scenes in Saltburn went viral when, at the end of the film, Keoghan is seen dancing naked around a luxury manor to Sophie Ellis-Bextor’s Murder On The Dancefloor.

He will next appear in Netflix’s film based on the hit series Peaky Blinders opposite Oscar winner and fellow Irishman Cillian Murphy.

Harris Dickinson - John Lennon

The 28-year-old Londoner picked up roles in Danny Boyle’s series Trust, playing kidnapping victim John Paul Getty III in the drama opposite Hollywood heavyweights such as Donald Sutherland and Hilary Swank, and earned a 2022 Rising Star Bafta nod.

Dickinson’s next roles included the Disney fantasy movie Maleficent: Mistress Of Evil as a prince and the action movie The King’s Man with Ralph Fiennes.

He has also opted for more absurd movies, including the Palme D’Or-winning Triangle Of Sadness, which saw him play a struggling model who ends up on a doomed luxury cruise, and he played a wrestler in The Iron Claw opposite Zac Efron and Jeremy Allen White.

His other film credits include The Souvenir Part II, which he starred in alongside Tilda Swinton and her daughter, Honor Swinton Byrne, the thriller Where The Crawdads Sing, and the comedy-drama Scrapper.

For many recent filmgoers, he is also known for being in Babygirl, playing a young man who seduces a businesswoman, played by Nicole Kidman in the 2024 erotic thriller.

Dickinson was also recently Bafta-nominated for the upcoming TV awards for the FX mystery series A Murder At The End of the World for supporting actor.

In December, Variety asked him about the role in the Beatles biopic, and he responded: "It would be amazing to do that.

He added: "I think the idea of Sam teaming up to do something like that would be incredibly exciting. Obviously, John Lennon is a very complex role, a pretty formidable force to try to do. It would be cool."

Joseph Quinn - George Harrison

The 31-year-old Londoner shot to stardom when he joined Stranger Things for the fourth season as Dungeons & Dragons enthusiast Eddie Munson, after having appeared in an adaptation of E M Forster’s Howards End, and Dickensian, about various Charles Dickens characters, for the BBC.

Quinn has also starred in the alien invasion movie A Quiet Place: Day One, a prequel to the films A Quiet Place (2018) and A Quiet Place Part II (2020), and appeared in the hit HBO series Game Of Thrones, along with historical Sky drama Catherine The Great with Dame Helen Mirren.

Quinn was also cast as one of the two feuding Roman emperors and brothers in Gladiator II, the antagonist to his new Beatles co-star Paul Mescal.

Quinn will next be seen in the Marvel movie The Fantastic Four: First Steps, opposite Vanessa Kirby, Pedro Pascal and Ebon Moss-Bachrach.

Following that, he will be in A24's Warfare, a 2025 war action film written and directed by Ray Mendoza and Alex Garland. Based on Mendoza's experiences during the Iraq War as a former U.S. Navy SEAL, the film follows, in real-time, a platoon of Navy SEALs on a mission through insurgent territory in 2006.