The Beatles: famously good at tunes. And, nearly as famously, good at dressing. The drainpipe suits and fringes of their early days; the psychedelic, day-glo marching band outfits for the cover of Sgt. Pepper’s; George Harrison’s double denim on the cover of Abbey Road—the Fab Four could get a fit off.
Which means the actors playing them in Sam Mendes’s quartet of biopics, set for release in April 2028, have big shoes to fill. At a film industry event, Cinemacon, in Las Vegas last night, he revealed (or confirmed the rumors around) his lineup: Harris Dickinson as John Lennon, Barry Keoghan as Ringo Starr, Joseph Quinn as George Harrison, and Paul Mescal as Paul McCartney.
Barry as Ringo is a particularly inspired choice, what with the goofy dude vibes they both have in abundance. And during last night’s announcement, it was Keoghan who really leaned in style-wise. All four actors were in black, and Mescal, Dickinson, and Quinn paired their sensible trousers with equally sensible tops. The vibe was “drama school student at an autumn rehearsal” rather than anything especially Beatles-y. Fair enough: they want to look like they’re hard at work practicing their Scouse accents in the mirror.
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Keoghan had a different idea. Styled by Ilaria Urbinati, he walked out in a leather Alexander McQueen jacket that paid homage to those masterful Sgt Pepper’s outfits. On that album cover, Ringo’s is a satiny, bubble-gum pink, with medals, braid, epaulettes—the works. Keoghan’s dials down the decoration slightly (only slightly) and gives it the ribbed cuffs and waistband of a classic leather bomber. Think Sgt. Pepper’s Gnarly Hard Rock Band. Or if Ringo got into collecting Harley-Davidsons in his later years rather than voicing Thomas in Thomas the Tank Engine.
Neither Dickinson nor Quinn—and certainly not Mescal, GQ’s most stylish person of 2024—are menswear slouches. But it’s particularly reassuring to see Keoghan keep up his campy, OTT red-carpet energy here. For these four biopics to fly and not flop, they need to be fun and entertaining rather than pure, stoney-faced Oscar bait. Starr is often overlooked as the funniest Beatle. When he prematurely confirmed Keoghan’s casting in November, he said, with perfect self-deprecation: “I believe he’s somewhere taking drum lessons, and I hope not too many.”
With Keoghan leaning into that humor—and what’s a Sgt. Pepper’s-style leather jacket, if not a great gag bound up in a great piece of menswear—the PR circus will be all the wilder (and better) for it.
This story originally appeared on British GQ.
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