Actor Paul Mescal got to play ‘Blackbird’ with Paul McCartney: ‘I will never forget it as long as I live’

Actor Paul Mescal will play Paul McCartney in director Sam Mendes’ upcoming Beatles biopics, and he talks to Rolling Stone about the work he’s putting in to get it right.

He and his castmates will be performing live for the film, and Mescal tells the mag he’s been learning to play guitar left-handed for the role.

“It would just be crazy to not play it left-handed, you know?” he says. “You’re like, ‘Nah. I like [McCartney] a lot but I don’t love him.’ That would be the messaging if I didn’t play left-handed. And he’s the f***** coolest man on planet earth, I think.”

Mescal was able to meet with McCartney and even got to play a classic Beatles tune with him.

“I will never forget it as long as I live. I got to play ‘Blackbird’ with him,” he says in a video interview with the mag. “That’s the coolest thing that my job has ever afforded me. I was kind of having an out-of-body experience, being like, I was in drama school nine years ago, and now I’m sat opposite Paul McCartney and we’re playing ‘Blackbird.'”

He adds, “I was like, I love my job.”

Mescal says he’s always been a “massive admirer” of McCartney’s music, calling the rocker’s work ethic “absolutely relentless.”

“I’m biased, but I think it’s kind of just an objective fact that like the work that he made has changed the world, the world of pop culture and culture more broadly,” he tells Rolling Stone. “I think he has fundamentally and forever changed the world.”

Mendes’ Beatles films, The Beatles – A Four-Film Cinematic Event, will be released in April 2028.

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