Beatles regroup in Toronto Aidan Quinn!!! plays the cute Beatle, Paul, in new feature shooting here By BRUCE KIRKLAND -- Toronto Sun NEW YORK -- Two of The Beatles, or at least reasonable facsimiles, are coming to Toronto.
Actor Aidan Quinn is terrified about it, because he's supposed to play one of the pop music legends -- Paul McCartney -- in a new movie called The Two Of Us.
Quinn makes a charming McCartney, uncannily capturing the cadence of his Liverpool accent, his boyish energy and his wide-eyed, spacy sweetness. Harris ("I Shot Andy Warhol") is less of a physical match to his character -- his features are too hawklike and brutish. But Harris gives a strong, unsentimental interpretation of Lennon as an emotionally needy man-boy; the scenes where John cruelly toys with fans in a neighborhood cafe, and curls up on the floor whimpering into the phone to Yoko ("You're the only thing that keeps me from disappearing") put a chill around your heart. No matter how many times Lennon's story gets told, the ending will be the same; we'll never know for sure if he ever made peace with himself.
At 9 PM ET tonight (Tuesday, February 1) VH1 will host what's being billed as a fictional reunion of two of the 20th century's greatest music makers. Jared Harris and Aidan Quinn play John Lennon and Paul McCartney, who meet at the Dakota to hammer out their differences in VH1's original movie The Two of Us.
In conjunction with the movie premiere, VH1.com is presenting a special Two of Us section featuring: film clips, artist biographies, links to Beatles fan sites, Beatles quotes from stars like Drew Barrymore, Janeane Garofalo, and Robin Williams, diaries from actor Aidan Quinn's journey to Liverpool, and an interview between Beatles historian Martin Lewis and screenwriter, Mark Stanfield. To go to this special section, please CLICK HERE.
Screenwriter Mark Stanfield may have let his own knowledge of Beatles trivia guide him in recreating the two characters. Both Lennon and McCartney did meet up after the Beatles came to an end in April 1970. And not always with their lawyers present.
In his 1980 interview with Playboy magazine, John Lennon said that there was "a period when Paul just kept turning up at our door with a guitar. I would let him in, but finally I said to him, 'Please call before you come over. It's not 1956 and turning up at the door isn't the same anymore. You know, just give me a ring.'""He was upset by that, but I didn't mean it badly," Lennon continued, "I just meant that I was taking care of a baby all day and some guy turns up at the door."
The Two of Us takes place on April 24, 1976, the night Saturday Night Live producer Lorne Michaels offered $3,000 for the Beatles to get back together on the air. Lennon remembered that he and Paul watched the show on TV together. Even they thought it was funny at the time.
On that night, [Paul] and Linda walked in and he and I were just sitting there, watching the show, and we went, 'Ha-ha, wouldn't it be funny if we went down?'" Lennon remembered. "We were watching it and almost went down to the studio, just as a gag. We nearly got into a cab, but we were actually too tired."
McCartney remembered it this way in a recent interview. "[John] said, 'We should go down there. We should go down now and just do it,'" McCartney said whilst promoting his new album Run Devil Run. "It was one of those moments where we said, 'Let's not and say we did.' " Although Lennon and McCartney remained cautious friends, even after their famous exchange of insults on 1971's "How Do You Sleep?" and 1973's "Let me Roll It," the possibility of a Beatles reunion was a tenuous one. McCartney could change his mind from interview to interview, while Lennon delivered the final word to Playboy.
"I don't give a sh*t what Wings is doing, or what George's new album is doing, or what Ringo is doing," he said. "I'm not interested, no more than I am in what Elton John or Bob Dylan is doing. It's not callousness, it's just that I'm too busy living my own life to be following what other people are doing, whether they're the Beatles or guys I went to college with or people I had intense relationships with before I met the Beatles."
Michaels, however, didn't stop. He later upped his offer to $3,200 in an attempt to get the Beatles back together. When that didn't happen, Saturday Night Live played host to Eric Idle's spoof band, the Rutles. And when George Harrison and McCartney each hosted the program, Lorne has been there to try and get them to accept his offer. Recreating VH1's version of that moment in history hasn't been an easy task for either actor. To make himself look like McCartney, Aidan Quinn wore brown contact lenses. He even went to Liverpool to research his character, and you can read his travel diary by CLICKING HERE.
But Quinn still feels he should let McCartney know that he is giving a performance, not impersonating the Walrus. So he's writing a letter to him. Aidan Quinn told USA Today, "I want him to know I wouldn't presume to be him." Quinn revealed that he studied Paul's mannerism and his Liverpudlian, or 'Scouse,' accent. However, his research went out the window when the camera began rolling. "I forgot about everything but playing the script - which is about profound friendship as much as about the two most beloved cultural icons of our time," he said. "I mean, the film's about John and Paul, but it could be about any really good friends. That's what makes it work."
Aidan Quinn originally wanted to play the part of John Lennon. But then he realized that the part of McCartney was meatier. The writer Mark Stanfield tried hard to present both sides of the men - geniuses and human beings. "I knew that I wanted to get across how much Paul really loved and understood John, which, I believe, is what frightened John," Stanfield said.
Two of Us director Michael Lindsay-Hogg thinks that both Quinn and Harris have got it right. And he should know. He directed the Beatles documentary, Let It Be, filming the band's last concert on their record company headquarters rooftop. "Jared and Aidan give such believable performances, we're often questioned whether Two of Us is true," Lindsay-Hogg said. "The script, which had Paul's approval, creates a reunion we wish had occurred and would love to have witnessed. Two of Us is our homage to Paul and John, to their talent, contributions, complex relationship and the gifts they've given us."
Viewers will be able to judge how successful their tribute is tonight at 9 PM.