A 10.31 story by Variety‘s Adam B. Vary has announced that Saoirse Ronan, Anna Sawai, Aimee Lou Wood and Mia McKenna-Bruce (who?) will play the spouses of Paul McCartney, John Lennon, George Harrison and Ringo Starr in Sam Mendes‘ Beatle flick quartet, which is due in ’27.
Ronan as Linda Eastman McCartney (spot-on casting), Sawai as Yoko Ono (fine), Wood as Patti Boyd Harrison (tolerable facial resemblance) and McKenna-Bruce as Maureen Starkey (flatline).
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But wait a minute….whoa, whoa, whoa. Mendes’ decision to cast the hawk-nosed, pointy-chin-chinned Paul Mescal as McCartney and double especially Joseph Quinn as Harrison despite the absolute absence of even a slight physical resemblance between them…I thought this meant that Mendes was bravely and boldly going for something else besides a mere similarity-of-appearance factor…right? Obviously zero interest in any kind of look-alike aesthetic.
But Wood’s signature buck teeth, which stirred some talk during the initial streaming of season #3 of The White Lotus earlier this year….Wood’s scary chompers** align precisely with Patti Boyd‘s rabbit teeth (or ‘rather prominent front teeth,” which is how a guy in the mid ’60s described them)…this is dead-to-rights proof of an inconsistent casting aesthetic.
Wood’s teeth had to be a factor in Mendes casting her as Boyd, but Mescal’s hawk-nose and pointy-chin-chin, which argue strenuously with McCartney’s facial features, wasn’t an issue at all. Hawknose schmawknose…close enough!
I’m sorry but I’m suffering from renewed Mescal pangs…cut me a break.
My complete inability to accept or vaguely roll along with Jeremy Allen White inhabiting Bruce Springsteen was a persistent finger-poke as I sat through Deliver Me From Nowhere…I wanted to somehow make peace with White or try to shrug my way past any misgivings I might have, but I couldn’t….I just fecking couldn’t.
I realized this morning that my White spasms will be nothing, trust me and God help me, when it comes to enduring Mescal’s McCartney a year and a half hence.
Yes, I’m obviously repeating myself as I’ve exhaustively vented about Mescal many, many times over the past couple of years and yes, it’s neurotic and obsessive to keep banging away on the same iron frying pan. I’m just openly sharing a feeling that hit me his morning…”if you had trouble with White, wait until old hawk nose comes along and wades into the McCartney-ing”…good effing Lord.
** We all understand why the term “scary” applies to a woman with sharp rabbit teeth. I don’t need to spell it out.