Saoirse Ronan Cast as Linda McCartney in Upcoming Beatles Biopic Series

EXCLUSIVE: Four-time Oscar nom­i­nee Saoirse Ronan (Brook­lyn) has inked a deal to play Lin­da McCart­ney, the first wife of The Bea­t­les’ Paul McCart­ney, in Sam Mendes’ The Bea­t­les — A Four-Film Cin­e­mat­ic Event, mul­ti­ple sources tell Dead­line.

Reps for Sony declined com­ment. Ronan joins a castthat includes Paul Mescal as Paul McCart­ney, Bar­ry Keoghan as Ringo Starr, Joseph Quinn as George Har­ri­son, and Har­ris Dick­in­son as John Lennon. With each of the Mendes-direct­ed Bea­t­les films telling the sto­ry of a dif­fer­ent mem­ber of the band, Ronan is expect­ed to fea­ture promi­nent­ly in the install­ment cen­tered on McCart­ney, though it’ s unknown to what extent she might appear in the oth­er three.

Lin­da McCart­ney was a pho­tog­ra­ph­er, musi­cian and ani­mal rights activist who rose to promi­nence in the 1960s with her por­trai­ture of The Rolling Stones, Jimi Hen­drix and The Doors. The first female pho­tog­ra­ph­er to have her work on the cov­er of Rolling Stone, she mar­ried Paul McCart­ney in 1969 and worked along­side him as part of his band Wings in his post-Bea­t­les career. An advo­cate for veg­e­tar­i­an­ism and ani­mal wel­fare, she launched her own com­pa­ny, Lin­da McCart­ney Foods, in 1991. She died from can­cer in 1998

We were first to report on the Bea­t­les films from Mendes, all of which will be released in the­aters in April 2028, in a bold exper­i­ment in even­tiz­ing. Mendes will direct from scripts writ­ten by Jez But­ter­worth, Peter Straugh­an and Jack Thorne, as we told you first, though it’s unclear which projects each is tack­ling. A col­lab­o­ra­tion between Sony Pic­tures Enter­tain­ment and Mendes’ Neal Street Pro­duc­tions, the films will be pro­duced by Mendes, Pip­pa Har­ris and Julie Pas­tor of Neal Street, as well as Alexan­dra Der­byshire, in asso­ci­a­tion with Apple Corps for Sony Pic­tures.

This marks the first time that The Bea­t­les and Apple Corps Ltd. have autho­rized the use of the band mem­bers’ life sto­ries and music in script­ed films. In addi­tion to dis­trib­ut­ing, Sony Pic­tures is the financier of the projects.

An Irish actress known for her work in pres­tige pic­tures like Brook­lyn, Lady Bird and Lit­tle Women, Ronan has most recent­ly been seen in Nora Fingscheidt’s The Out­run and Steve McQueen’s Blitz. Up next, she’ll be seen star­ring in Bad Apples, a dark com­e­dy from film­mak­er Jonatan Etzler that’s com­ing off its world pre­miere at TIFF. As we first report­ed, she’s also set to star oppo­site Austin But­ler in Deep Cuts, a music-themed A24 love sto­ry from The Iron Claw’s Sean Durkin, adapt­ing the debut nov­el by Hol­ly Brick­ley