Saoirse Ronan was recently on set filming scenes for Sam Mendes' upcoming Beatles biopic, portraying Linda McCartney, the late wife of Paul McCartney. Ronan, 32, was seen sporting a prosthetic baby bump while shooting sequences on Abbey Road, the location of the band's iconic 1969 album cover.
At the time of the famed Abbey Road photo shoot on August 8, 1969, Linda McCartney was pregnant with her and Paul's first child, Mary, who was born on August 28, 1969. While freelance photographer Iain Macmillan, a friend of John Lennon, captured the album cover image, Linda herself took behind-the-scenes photographs of the band.
Linda McCartney was already an established photographer by then, having gained recognition in 1966 for her work with the Rolling Stones for Town & Country magazine. She met Paul McCartney in 1967 at the music club Bag O'Nails. After The Beatles disbanded, Linda became a musical collaborator with Paul, playing keyboards and providing harmonies in Wings. The couple married in March 1969 and remained together until her death from breast cancer in 1998 at the age of 56.
Mendes' project, titled "The Beatles: A Four-Film Cinematic Event," will explore the evolution of each band member from their early days in Liverpool to global fame and their eventual breakup in 1970. The four films are set for a simultaneous release in 2028 and mark the first time surviving Beatles Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, along with the families of the late John Lennon and George Harrison, have granted rights for feature films about them.
Ronan's castmates include Paul Mescal as Paul McCartney, Harris Dickinson as John Lennon, Barry Keoghan as Ringo Starr, and Joseph Quinn as George Harrison. The cast also features Mia McKenna-Bruce as Ringo Starr's first wife, Maureen Starkey; Aimee Lou Wood as George Harrison's wife, Pattie Boyd; and Anna Sawai as John Lennon's wife, Yoko Ono. Mendes described the women playing the wives as "four fascinating and unique figures in their own right."