Paul McCartney isn't letting it be.
On Amy Poehler's "Good Hang" podcast, the music legend, 84, revealed his one bone to pick with the upcoming Beatles biopics: The suggestion that the Fab Four were not comparably tall.
"We were all the same height, and Ringo was a bit smaller," McCartney said, noting he's "got a thing about that."
This, he went on to explain, was an issue he had with Sam Taylor-Johnson's 2009 movie "Nowhere Boy," which starred Aaron Taylor-Johnson as John Lennon and Thomas Brodie-Sangster as McCartney.
"The John character … he's bigger than me in the film," McCartney recalled. "My character is kind of wimpy, smaller than John. John knocks me to the floor. And it's like, 'Sam, this is not true!' And 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, 'Hm, well, I don't like that explanation.'"
So McCartney wasn't thrilled when he discovered there would also be a height discrepancy in the upcoming Beatles biopics from director Sam Mendes, which star Harris Dickinson as Lennon and Paul Mescal as McCartney.
"[Mescal is] smaller than the guy who plays John," McCartney said. "Sam Mendes is making the film. I said, 'Sam, I've got just one thing I need to say to you.' So I don't know how Sam's going to deal with it. But 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! I texted him: 'Sam! Smaller! Don't do this! You said you wouldn't do it!'"
But according to McCartney, the director promised the height difference won't come across on screen, telling him, "No, it's OK, it's just the stride." He also "sent me another one where they were equal," McCartney said.
Dubbed "The Beatles – A Four-Film Cinematic Event," the Beatles biopics will be four separate movies, each one centered around one member of the iconic band. Joseph Quinn is set to play George Harrison, and Barry Keoghan is playing Ringo Starr.
Mescal previously told IndieWire that he was able to spend time with McCartney. "He's an extraordinary man, like to spend any time – it's a crazy sentence to say that I've spent time with that man, let alone play him," the actor said in 2025. Keoghan similarly met Starr at the musician's home, as the "Banshees of Inisherin" actor explained on "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" in 2025.
"I met him at his house, and he played the drums for me," Keoghan said. "He asked me to play, but I wasn't playing the drums for Ringo."
The cast of the Beatles movies also include Saoirse Ronan as McCartney's wife Linda and Anna Sawai as Yoko Ono. All four films are scheduled to be released in April 2028. Speaking at CinemaCon in 2025, Mendes described the films as the "first binge-able theatrical experience."
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Paul McCartney reveals his bone to pick with upcoming Beatles biopics
