The boys before their Beatlesification.
Photo: Gilbert Flores/Variety via Getty Images

It’s been a minute since any of us have seen Barry Keoghan, so you can forgive a bit of surprise when the Irish actor rocked up to the Crime 101 premiere on January 28 with a haircut that can only be described as LEGO man–esque. Keoghan’s overgrown bowl cut was a shock not only because we’ve never seen him look like this before, but because it was the first public clue of what he may look like when he plays Ringo Starr in Sam Mendes’s forthcoming Beatles biopics. Has anyone figured out what we’re calling these four movies yet? On paper, they’re The Beatles — A Four-Film Cinematic Event, but that can’t be what we’re supposed to be saying all the time. What about, like, Fab Fourtet?

For a brief handful of hours, it seemed like Keoghan’s red-carpet mop top was going to be our first and only look at what he — or Paul Mescal, Harris Dickinson, or Joseph Quinn — would look like as his respective Beatle. On the morning of January 29, we got our first look at each of our forthcoming Beatles boys in a series of postcards that Sony gave to the Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts (or LIPA — no Dua) for students to find around the building.

While we’ve yet to hear any music or silly little voices, we’re getting a somewhat blurry look at movies that are still two whole years away from being released. Maybe this is all some kind of stealth operation by Sony to gauge whether the public is sold on this casting just yet. Or maybe this is as good as it gets, and like all things, we just have to make due. We haven’t seen Saoirse Ronan as Linda McCartney or Anna Sawai as Yoko Ono yet, so there’s time yet to get everyone the best possible wig. Here’s hoping the students at LIPA have a great time chasing down these postcards and that the rest of us can hold out at least another year before we even see a trailer for whatever these movies are about to be.

the first look so far of harris dickinson as john lennon. pic.twitter.com/2ysUqRHw13

— harris dickinson daily (@dickinsonsdaily) January 29, 2026

If there’s one thing that Sam Mendes understands, it’s that John Lennon wore tiny glasses, and now so does Harris Dickinson.

Paul McCartney: so whose garden are you writing a song about?

Barry Keoghan as Ringo Starr: he’s sart of like a friendly octopus pic.twitter.com/JAcnQDnOD3

— Doc Sportello (@TheDocSportello) January 29, 2026

Yes, his face looks both swollen and yassified, but Keoghan has managed to capture the iconic “Ringo glare,” a.k.a. what he looked like when he tried to figure out what kind of animal’s garden he wanted to write a song about. It’s easy to laugh at his hair out of context, but he actually grew out a pretty effective mop, so you have to hand it to him, especially once we get to what they want us to think George Harrison looked like.

The Pauls share an open sadness in their eyes, and in this lone, low-quality photo of a photo, it’s clear that Mescal finds the inherent sadness in McCartney’s stoic vision for what the band could be. Beyond that, however, that’s just a picture of Paul Mescal, and not one of the greatest living rock-and-roll legends.

🔴 First official look at Joseph Quinn as George Harrison in ‘THE BEATLES’ biopics pic.twitter.com/Ee8rCMALFr

— Joseph Quinn HQ (@joequinnhq) January 29, 2026

Is this a Big Little Lies wig? Please: We have two years to fix this. Someone fix this.

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