How difficult is it to play one of the Fab Four?

Playing any well -known figure in recent history is a challenge, but the challenge of finding four actors to put convincing representations of four of the most famous people in popular culture is that a few directors have tried.

Earlier this month, director Sam Mendes announced the casting of his Beatles biopic in four games, each member of the group preparing to be the subject of their own feature films provided for the release in 2028.

The actors Harris Dickinson, Paul Mescal, Joseph Quinn and Barry Keoghan will play John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr respectively.

Their performance – and in particular their efforts on the distinctive accents of the Beatles – will be closely monitored by fans around the world. And if the attempts of the previous actors are something to pass, they should prepare for a meticulous examination.

Perhaps one of the most famous and successful Beatles biopics is Backbeat in 1994, which takes place in the group 1960-1962 of the group.

On the one hand, he turned the actor of Liverpool Ian Hart in a convincing Lennon (even if he was not exactly the double of Lennon).

But on the other, the Hollywood actor Stephen Dorff, playing the main character in the film by the Basse des Beatles original and artist Stuart Sutcliffe, who died of a 21 -year -old cerebral hemorrhage, provided a strange resemblance. But his attempt at the Liverpool accent has received, over the years, the “decent” magazines with “variable” to “horrible”.

So, should an actor who assume a Beatle role should be wary?

The historian of the Beatles, Paul Du Noyer, who wrote the Beatles: The Complete Illustrated Story and Conversations with Paul McCartney, said: “The Beatles are so well known to all of us, not only their faces, but all the nuances of the way they speak, each mannerism.

“Many of us know the Beatles as well as we know our own families. It can be difficult for us to suspend disbelief.

“Even when I saw performances that were very good, for example Ian Hart in Backbeat, who circumvented the problem of familiarity by lingering over a less known period in their history.”

Du Noyer added that some Beatles may seem easier to take off than others.

“In some ways, you stick a wig and a beard on someone, small round-grandmother glasses and a white suit and everyone says:” It’s John Lennon “”

But he said that McCartney was a more difficult to nail – especially when the man himself is a hard critic.

“Paul was very critical of films like the early childhood biopic of Sam Taylor -Wood by John Lennon) Nowhere Boy, and Backbeat, because they tend to fall into a pastiche of McCartney that he does not recognize – he does not like the stereotype of him being the Mignon, the manipulator.”

So, does Sam Mendes have a job in his hands?

Du Noyer added: “He has bancable stars, who will not give up. I know that there was a certain disappointment among the Liverpudliens because the non-cells were thrown into the roles, but even as a faithful Liverpudlian, I cannot condemn Sam Mendes on the casting, because he makes films for the whole world to watch.

“I think that the accuracy of the Liverpool accent will be quite low in the list of things it should cover.”

Edda Sharpe, a coach of voice and dialect based in Merseyside who worked with actors from the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theater, said that there were specific challenges to meet the voice of a Beatle.

Among them, the fact that the accent with which John, Paul, George and Ringo spoke are much less pronounced than that which many could associate with Liverpool today.

The Beatles aficionados will know that on the version of Let it be album of the former folk melody of Liverpool Maggie May, Lennon deliberately exaggerated the Liverpool accent, lengthening his vowels and adding a much more nasal nasal quality.

Performance has more in common with today’s scousete than with that with which the Beatles have spoken.

“And the challenge is that the way the Beatles have spoken, you no longer hear that. It is a completely different tone of the Liverpool accent to which we are currently exhibited,” said Sharpe.

“And you are not just trying to create the sound of someone from Liverpool in the 1960s, you try to create the sound of people that everyone knows.”

She said there could be advantages for Irish actors Mescal and Keoghan, because there are certain common features in Liverpool and Irish accents.

But she said that similarities of accent could also prove to be problematic for actors.

“The accent of Northern Ireland, in particular, has this kind of quality at the bottom, and when you listen to the first recordings of the Beatles, you hear what looks like a familiar Irish model.

“But sometimes the accents that are closer to yours are more difficult to do than those who are completely different.”

Dr. Paul Cooper, lecturer in English at the University of Liverpool, said that there was academic research to support the idea that “Scouse obtained more scouse” than before at the time of the Beatles.

He said that the research of linguistics expert Marten Juskan in the changing sound of the Scouse accent supported the complaint.

“Also,” said Cooper, “I think the youngest is now looking at the accent more favorably than maybe it was examined 30 or 40 years ago.

“There has always been a strong feeling of pride in an accent, but I think that in the 1980s and 1990s, you had the stuff of Scousers Harry Enfield and he may have become a little more negative.

“I think that now it is seen a little more favorably. In addition, Liverpool is much more a tourist destination now, and the accent is considered to be very welcoming and very friendly.”

But what has an actor who took not one but two Beatle roles think that the challenge will be for the actors who will face the Fab Four in the films of Mendes?

Michael Hawkins played John Lennon in the successful show Cilla: The Musical based on the life and career of Liverpool artist Cilla Black, and, in his first television role, George Harrison in the 2014 Serial Biopic Biopic, with Sheridan Smith playing the title role.

Hawkins said, “You have to do your research, look at as much as possible.

“Obviously, in films like Hard Days Night, they somehow play a version of themselves, but with the film Get Back, you see more as they were.

“So many people have the impression of knowing them so well that if you get something a little, it will make people make.

“It is a question of obtaining authenticity and not doing caricature.”

The 35 -year -old man, a member of “Band” Band “Ugly Baby, said that even as a born and high Scouser, he was not immune to examining his representation from Harrison to Cilla.

He added: “I did not really change my accent to play George. And then one of my friends sent me a criticism, of the mirror, I think it was, where they said that George’s accent was only a northern general, without any trace of the pool.

“And I was the only scouring of our four.”