Irish actress Saoirse Ronan has reportedly been cast as Linda McCartney in Sam Mendes’ The Beatles – A Four Film Cinematic Event.
According to Deadline, multiple sources have stated that Ronan — famed for her performances in Ladybird and Little Women — will play the first wife of The Beatles’ Paul McCartney in the upcoming series of biopics. Representatives for distributors Sony Pictures are yet to make an official comment.
As announced earlier this year, each of the Mendes-directed Beatles films will tell the story of a different member of the band. Ronan will feature prominently in the installment centered on McCartney alongside Paul Mescal as the singer, while it is currently unknown to what extent she might appear in the other three.
Ronan has received four Oscar nominations across an illustrious career and appeared in addiction-recovery drama The Outrun last year. More recently, she led the dark comedy Bad Apples, which premiered at the Toronto Film Festival last month.
The 31-year-old joins a cast that includes Barry Keoghan as Ringo Starr, Joseph Quinn as George Harrison, and Harris Dickinson as John Lennon. With scripts written by Jez Butterworth, Peter Straughan and Jack Thorne, the films are expected to arrive in spring 2028, though official details currently remain scant.
Linda and Paul McCartney met in 1967 and they were married until her death from cancer in 1998. She was a photographer, musician and animal rights activist who founded a vegetarian food company. She also performed alongside Paul as part of his post-Beatles band, Wings.
The Beatles – A Four Film Cinematic Event, meanwhile, marks the first time that The Beatles and Apple Corps Ltd. have authorised the use of the band members’ life stories and music in scripted films.
In February, following a SAG Award win for her breakout role in Shōgun, Anna Sawai dismissed rumors that she had been cast as Yoko Ono for the film series. “I think a rumor is just a rumor,” the actress said, adding that she was “still trying to figure out what I want to do, so I’m reading a lot of scripts.”
