Peter Jackson Said Paul McCartney Was Nervous to Meet Him Because He Was ‘Imagining the Worst’
TL;DR:
- Peter Jackson looked through hours of Beatles footage for The Beatles: Get Back.
- Peter Jackson was surprised to realize Paul McCartney was nervous about meeting him.
- Paul McCartney said Peter Jackson helped him forgive himself.
Director Peter Jackson was full of apprehension when he began work on the docuseries The Beatles: Get Back. While he wanted to make a Beatles movie, he didn’t want to make one about their break up. He was happily surprised by the old footage and began work on the documentary. When he met Paul McCartney, Jackson was shocked by the realization that McCartney was nervous. McCartney wasn’t sure what Jackson thought of him after watching the footage.
‘The Beatles: Get Back’ was released in 2021
Though Jackson wanted to make a Beatles movie, he didn’t immediately agree to the project.
“I actually didn’t say yes,” he told Vanity Fair in 2021. “I said, ‘Can I look at all the footage first? And then I’ll let you know.’ Because I was thinking, I’d love to make a Beatles film, but I don’t want to make the Beatles-breakup film. That’s the one Beatles movie I would never want to make.”
The footage was originally from the 1970 documentary Let It Be, which showed the band frustrated with each other and ready for a change. Jackson said he sat down to watch it with “a kind of heavy heart.” Ultimately, though, the footage surprised him.
“What I found is that I was laughing continuously,” he said. “I just was laughing. I was laughing and laughing and laughing, and I didn’t stop.”
The resulting project was The Beatles: Get Back, a three-episode documentary series that premiered in 2021.
Peter Jackson said Paul McCartney seemed apprehensive about meeting him
When Jackson first met McCartney in 2017, he was surprised to note the musician’s apprehension. He had long blamed himself for The Beatles’ break up and wasn’t sure how Jackson would view him after seeing the footage.
“I could see on his face he was imagining the worst,” Jackson said, adding, “I just said to him, ‘Look, I’ve got to say, it surprised the hell out of me because I was expecting it to be a miserable experience for you. I expected to have to witness a rather bleak moment — but it’s actually the exact opposite. It’s incredibly funny. It’s incredibly lively. It shows you guys having a great time.'”
Jackson said McCartney reacted to this with disbelief.
“And he couldn’t believe it,” he explained. “He said, ‘What? What? Really? Really?’ And it certainly surprised him. Because he has never seen this stuff, even though he lived through it. It’s a long time ago, and subsequent events, I think, just muddied the whole memory of this thing.”
Paul McCartney said Peter Jackson helped him forgive himself
According to McCartney, Jackson completely changed his own understanding of his past. He sent him a clip from the series that helped him forgive himself.
“He sent me a little clip, and it really saved my life,” McCartney said on the Fly on the Wall podcast. “It was like having an old home movie of yourself. But perfect. And, you know … I forgave myself when I saw that. Because I’m thinking no, everyone’s messing around and we’re all messing around, we’re goofing around. It’s not like we haven’t got to do anything in a month’s time … with these songs we haven’t written yet.”
