Pattie Boyd, the former wife of guitarist George Harrison, has hit out at the upcoming Beatles biopics – claiming she hasn’t “been contacted by anyone” involved with the four films.
Filming for Sam Mendes’ ambitious four-film project is currently underway, with Stranger Things star Joseph Quinn playing Harrison and Sex Education’s Aimee Lou Wood as former model and photographer Boyd.
But while the two living Beatles members – Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr – have met the actors immortalising them on-screen and visited the set, Boyd said nobody has reached out to her, adding that the films seem to have “nothing to do with the truth”.
Speaking during an appearance on the new podcast Miss O’Dell: Abbey Road to Tulsa Time, hosted by Chris O’Dell, a former Beatles tour manager, Boyd said: “I would have thought it would be polite to mention it to me or let me know that they got someone who’s going to be playing me.
“Don’t you think they’d let me know? Well, I haven’t been contacted by anyone. I could have really told them great stories. But I don’t think they want to know.”
Boyd continued: “I think they want to create something that’s completely different, like a different story.” She added that the biopics seem to be closer to “the filmmaker’s creation of what they think happened” than the truth.
The Independent has contacted Sam Mendes and Sony for comment.
Boyd first met Harrison on the set of the Beatles’ film Hard Days Night in 1964 and the pair married two years later. By the mid-1970s though, their relationship was on the rocks with Harrison having had multiple affairs – including flings with Ronnie Wood’s wife, Krissy, and Ringo Starr’s wife, Maureen Starkey Tigrett – while Boyd formed a close friendship with Eric Clapton, who she would later marry.
Her comments come after Paul Mescal revealed he had met McCartney as part of his preparations to play the musician, describing him as an “extraordinary man”, while drummer Starr has stopped by the set and spent time with Barry Keoghan.
The Saltburn actor revealed last year: “When I was talking to him, I couldn’t look at him. I was nervous, like right now. But he’s like, ‘You can look at me’. My job is to observe and kinda take in mannerisms and study him. I want to humanise him and bring feelings to it and not just sort of imitate.”
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The quartet will be completed by Babygirl actor Harris Dickinson as John Lennon. The films will also star Saoirse Ronan as Linda McCartney, Mia McKenna-Bruce (How to Have Sex) as Starr’s former wife Maureen Starkey Tigrett, and Anna Sawai (Shogun) as Yoko Ono.
To prepare for playing activist and artist Ono, Sawai has met with her two children. She said last year: “I met with Sean and Kyoko, they were so lovely. They welcomed me to their home in New York and I got to really talk to them, learn from them.”
The four films, each telling The Beatles’ story from the perspective of a different band member, will be released simultaneously on 7 April 2028.