Casting Jay Leno in the New Beatles Movie Was a Terrible Mistake
Jay Leno is known for two things: hosting The Tonight Show and preventing other people from hosting The Tonight Show. Okay, three things if you count repeatedly crashing vintage motor vehicles. The point is, Leno isn’t generally known for being a great actor, even despite the fact that, in his pre-talk show days, he literally starred in a Rush Hour-esque action-comedy with Pat Morita. It wasn’t good.
Leno later admitted that his only starring vehicle, Collision Course, was “terrible” and the clunky process put him off of film acting entirely.
But despite that disastrous experience, Leno was apparently still game to co-star in an upcoming movie. And it’s a drama. About The Beatles. Seriously.
Midas Man tells the story of Brian Epstein, who famously discovered and managed Liverpool’s Fab Four before tragically dying at the age of 32. The promising film stars legit dramatic actors like Eddie Marsan, Emily Watson and Jacob Fortune-Lloyd from The Queen’s Gambit as Epstein. Plus, Leno, who was cast as Ed Sullivan for some reason.
Judging from the trailer, it’s likely to be the most distracting casting choice in a musical biopic since Mike Myers randomly showed up in Bohemian Rhapsody to remind us that Wayne’s World was once a thing.
Sullivan is obviously an important figure in the Beatles story, seeing as their appearance on his show in 1964 was one of the most iconic moments in the history of television. It was basically the ‘60s equivalent of the time Leno grilled Hugh Grant to the delight of America.
Obviously, Leno is also a famous talk show host, but that’s not how movies are generally cast. Like, you don’t just hire someone who happens to share the character’s profession instead of an actor. That’s why Raiders of the Lost Ark starred Harrison Ford and not an actual archeologist.
Then there’s the fact that Leno is around 10 years older than Sullivan was when he first hosted The Beatles on his show. Also, he looks and sounds nothing like Sullivan, which seems like a problem. And whatever makeup and hair dye they slathered on Leno seemed to give him more of a Dick Tracy villain vibe. As some folks on social media have pointed out, the only role Jay Leno should be allowed to play is Jay Leno.
Which has mostly been the case for the last three decades. In the rare instances that Leno has popped up in movies and TV shows, he’s usually playing a fictional version of himself. And he’s totally convincing as “Jay Leno” in movies like Wayne’s World 2 and Stuck on You.
Although, to be fair, Leno did get to stretch his dramatic muscles in 1998 when he played Cartman’s amorous pet cat Mr. Kitty, which, in retrospect, was more entertaining than 1,000 episodes of Jay Leno’s Garage.
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