Paul McCartney has been interviewed by his Beatles biopic counterpart, Paul Mescal. Watch below.
- READ MORE: The Beatles: every song ranked in order of greatness
The chat comes ahead of Macca’s new album ‘The Boys Of Dungeon Lane’, which arrives on May 29 (pre-order here), and has so far been previewed by ‘Days We Left Behind’ and ‘Home To Us’ – his first duet with Ringo Starr.
Mescal, who plays McCartney in Sam Mendes’ upcoming four-film series about the Fab Four, sat down with the music icon for In Conversation – an exclusive short film shared by Amazon.
Opening the 10-minute chat, Mescal asks McCartney: “How do you feel about being interviewed?”
“It depends if I like the person. Which is where we’re running into a problem already,” McCartney joked. “No, I find if I like who I’m being interviewed by, it comes easy.”
Mescal goes on to ask McCartney about his songwriting process on ‘The Boys of Dungeon Lane’, noting that the lyrics feature memories but still exist “in the present tense.”
“I haven’t got a formula,” McCartney said. “They used to ask me and John [Lennon], ‘How’d you do it? Who writes the music, who writes the words?’ I don’t know. To me, I think any story or song you’re gonna do, it’s gotta involve memory. With the Beatles, we always tried to write something different.”
Mescal then asked McCartney about ‘Salesman Saint’, a new song on the album written about McCartney’s parents.
“I often remember that my mom and dad had me in World War 2. I’ve always known that growing up, but at a certain point you go ‘Wow,” McCartney said. “It occurred to me that it’d be good to just put down some stuff about them carrying on through whatever they had to put up with.”
Mescal then asked McCartney about the actor’s “favourite” song on the album, the first single ‘Days We Left Behind’, which alludes to his time with Lennon.
“The collaboration you had with them all and the relationship you had with John, it’s such a full, brilliant, complicated thing, and where’s your heart with all of that now? Mescal asked.
“Looking back on your life, I ran into this guy called John Lennon, and he was fighting life — he had a lot of trouble, his dad had left home, his mom had got run over, he had a lot of trouble in there — so he was putting up a shield, so he was very witty, very biting,” McCartney said. “When it came to writing, that kind of relationship stayed there, so on this record, I might even refer to him in my mind, as if we’re still writing together.”
You can watch the full interview here.
🗣️ Paul Mescal to Paul McCartney:
“The relationship you had with John, it’s such a full, brilliant, complicated thing ….
And *where is your heart* with all of that now?”
McCartney’s lovely answer & further thoughts about Lennon: 👇 #promo #album #new #music #beatles pic.twitter.com/WjpiPLLQy3
— Nicole (@NicoleBdorf) May 25, 2026
Currently going by the title The Beatles – A Four-Film Cinematic Event, they have been written by Jez Butterworth (Jerusalem, Spectre), Peter Straughan (Conclave, Tinker Tailer Soldier Spy) and Jack Thorne (Adolescence, His Dark Materials), and they will star Mescal as McCartney, Harris Dickinson as John Lennon, Joseph Quinn as George Harrison and Barry Keoghan as Ringo Starr. They’re currently slated for an April 2028 release.
Speaking about the films in January, Mescal said fans would “benefit from knowing as little as possible” about them before watching them. “I think the endeavour is totally singular,” he added. “On a personal level, I’m so thrilled to be working on something at this scale, but also rooted in performance with Sam and great writers.”
He had previously revealed that he would be doing his own singing for the role and had spent time with McCartney to prepare.
McCartney later playfully touched on Mescal’s aptness for the role. During his appearance on the last ever episode of The Late Show last week – in which he sang a duet of ‘Hello, Goodbye’ with host Stephen Colbert before switching off the lights for good at the Ed Sullivan Theatre – he was asked who was cuter out of the two of them.
McCartney simply grinned and pointed at himself. “Me,” he said.
After the crowd applauded, McCartney made clear that he was being tongue-in-cheek, adding: “No, he’s very cute, he’s very cute.”
The likes of David Morrissey, Leanne Best, Bobby Schofield and James Norton joined the cast at the end of last year. Other actors set to star in the films include Saoirse Ronan, Anna Sawai, Aimee Lou Wood and Mia McKenna-Bruce, who are playing Linda McCartney, Yoko Ono, Pattie Boyd and Maureen Starkey, respectively.
Elsewhere, Pattie Boyd recently said that no one involved with the upcoming films has approached her, despite casting an actor to play her.
