John Lennon fans are more than used to seeing Hollywood actors impersonate their favorite Beatle. From Ian Hart in 1994’s Backbeat, Jared Harris in 2000’s Two of Us, Christopher Eccelston in 2010’s Lennon Naked, to Robert Carlyle in 2018’s Yesterday, the famed rock n’roll star is a coveted, but not particularly exclusive, role—at least among British actors.
Now, as was announced last night, 28-year-old Harris Dickinson will join the club, starring as John Lennon as one of four Beatles biopics movies—one for each band member—all directed by Sam Mendes, all releasing in April 2028. Though I admired Dickinson stony-face smoldering as a dominant intern in Babygirl—and though I’m willing to give the young actor a shot at playing a more sensitive soul with a gentler touch—I couldn’t help but think, upon hearing the news: “He’ll never live up to Aaron Taylor Johnson in Nowhere Boy.”
The 2009 Lennon biopic Nowhere Boy—currently streaming free on Prime Video and Pluto TV—was the debut film for director Sam Taylor-Johnson. (She met star Aaron Taylor-Johnson on the set, and the couple has now been married for 13 years.) It served as something of an “origin story” for Lennon, the band’s founder and de facto leader, at least in those early days. Nowhere Boy wasn’t a cliché music biopic about The Beatles becoming the most popular band of all time—though it does depict the historic meeting between Lennon and Paul McCartney, played by the baby-faced Thomas Brodie-Sangster—it was a tender coming-of-age story about a teenager named John, who was briefly reunited with his estranged mother, Julia (played by Anne-Marie Duff), before her tragic death in 1958.
The film, which only opened to limited theaters in the U.S., wasn’t a hit at the box office or with critics. Reviewers seemed to like Taylor-Johnson’s performance well enough, but he was completely passed over for awards season. That’s rare for a somewhat famous actor playing a beloved Boomer rock star. Some critics took issue with the fact that Taylor-Johnson bore little resemblance to the real Lennon. But though not a Lennon lookalike, Taylor-Johnson captured Lennon’s sensibility—his wit, his intelligence, his anger, his pain—in a way that, so far, no other Hollywood actor has managed to do.
This new Lennon movie for “The Beatles – Four Film Cinematic Event,” as Sony is calling it, will presumably showcase the songwriter and musician at a later period in his life than the Lennon of Nowhere Boy. All four Beatles actors—Dickinson as Lennon, Paul Mescal as Paul McCartney, Joseph Quinn as George Harrison, and Barry Keoghan as Ringo Starr—are in their late 20s or early 30s, suggesting the movie might cover the band at the height of their fame in the 1960s. As of now, we only have a vague log line: “Each man has his own story, but together they are legendary.”
Even before his gruesome murder outside his Manhattan apartment in 1980, “John Lennon” was a romantic concept, rather than a human, who was worshiped among Beatles fans. He was the leader, yes, but also the deep one. The poetic one. The genius. The one with the temper. After his violent death at the age of 40, the Lennon fascination reached near-mythic proportions. But through an expressive, raw, emotional performance in Nowhere Boy, Taylor-Johnson managed to strip the myth down to a scared, vulnerable boy processing a trauma that would haunt him for the rest of his life. (Lennon wrote several songs for his late mother, including 1968’s “Julia” from The White Album.) And it didn’t hurt that Taylor-Johnson nailed Lennon’s iconic, sardonic, Liverpudlian voice.
Before Nowhere Boy, Taylor-Johnson had been at the height of his Kick Ass fame, a tongue-in-cheek superhero flick where he starred as a high-school-loser-turned-DIY-vigilante. He had a soft, playful, dorky persona that had to be hardened to capture Lennon’s effortless cool factor and inner rage. Dickinson’s challenge will be the opposite: He’ll need to soften his hard edges to tap into Lennon’s beloved sensitivity, artistry, and humor.
So far, Dickinson’s big roles on screen have required different brands of traditional masculinity. As a reluctant male model in Triangle of Sadness, he was a self-centered, simple boy toy. As the second-oldest Von Erich brother in The Iron Claw, he was a fighting machine—rippling muscles, broad shoulders, and grunted line deliveries. And as a twenty-something intern who initiates a kinky affair with his boss (Nicole Kidman) in Babygirl, he was a coolly dismissive, dangerous heartthrob.
But sculpted abs won’t help Dickinson deliver an authentic John Lennon performance. Lennon’s aggression wasn’t tied to bulging muscles. It was a simmering agony covered by playful mania, quick wit, and genuine empathy. Taylor-Johnson’s gentle charm was, if not a natural fit for Lennon, at least a natural transition. I’m not saying I don’t think Dickinson can do it. He’s a skilled actor who’s already shown himself to have range. But I fear Dickinson an uphill battle ahead of him if he hopes to live up to the high bar set by Taylor-Johnson. And it wouldn’t hurt to scale back on the sit-ups.
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