“Shogun” star Anna Sawai and “The White Lotus” breakout Aimee Lou Wood are circling the roles of Yoko Ono and Pattie Boyd in the upcoming four-part “Beatles” biopic by director Sam Mendes, Variety has confirmed.
Ono, an artist and singer-songwriter, is the widow of John Lennon and one of his biggest creative influences. Sawai would star alongside Harrison Dickinson as Lennon, who was married to Ono from 1969 until his death in 1980. Lennon was shot and killed by a deranged fan outside of their Upper West Side apartment building, the Dakota.
Boyd, a model, met George Harrison (who will be played by Joseph Quinn) when she was 19 on the set of the Beatles 1964 feature “A Hard Day’s Night,” and became a sensation in her own right in 1960s swinging London. They married in 1966; after the Beatles broke up in 1970, their marriage began to deteriorate, and they ultimately divorced in 1977. She was subsequently married to Eric Clapton from 1979 to 1989. On Oct. 10, she posted to social media that the prospect of Wood playing her was “big news” and she was “looking forward (hoping) to meet” the actor “at some point in the future.”
The deals for Sawai and Wood are not signed, however, and it’s not certain they will be cast. A representative of Sony Pictures had no comment.
As for the rest of the Fab Four, Paul Mescal is playing Paul McCartney and Barry Keoghan will star as Ringo Starr. Saoirse Ronan has been cast as McCartney’s first wife, Linda, who also performed in his post-Beatles band, Wings; Mia McKenna-Bruce is set to play Starr’s first wife, Maureen Starkey.
Mendes is making four separate movies, one from each Beatles member’s point of view. They will intersect to capture the band’s improbable journey from Liverpool to the center of global culture, leading to their 1970 breakup. The tagline, in other words, is “Each man has his own story, but together they are legendary.” All four installments will debut on the big screen in April 2028 in what Sony Pictures is dubbing the “first binge-able theatrical experience.” The exact release timeline is unclear.
McCartney, Starr, and the families of the late Lennon and Harrison have granted full life story and music rights for the scripted films, making these the first features sanctioned by the band.
“I’m honored to be telling the story of the greatest rock band of all time, and excited to challenge the notion of what constitutes a trip to the movies,” Mendes said when the project was announced earlier in 2025.
Sawai, 33, rose to fame in Japan as a singer in the girl group Faky before breaking through internationally on the Apple TV+ series “Pachinko.” She scored an Emmy for the series “Shogun,” making her the first Japanese actress to win for lead actress. Sawai will also appear onscreen in director David Leitch’s heist film “How to Rob a Bank” and the Jeremy Allen White and Austin Butler-led crime drama “Enemies.”
Wood, 31, first starred in the Netflix teen dramedy “Sex Education” over four seasons from 2019 to 2023. She’s also appeared opposite Bill Nighy in the 2022 film “Living,” and she earned her first Emmy nomination in 2025 for her role in the third season of HBO’s “The White Lotus.”
Alex Ritman contributed to this report.
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