Midas Man, about The Beatles‘ manager Brian Epstein, is now streaming. Epstein, a gay man from an immigrant Jewish family, died of an accidental drug overdose at age 32 after shepherding the Fab Four and other music acts to worldwide fame. Queen’s Gambit actor Jacob Fortune-Lloyd, who plays Epstein, says he initially didn’t know much about Epstein — or even The Beatles’ music.
“There was so many songs that I really hadn’t heard properly before. … So, yeah, I spent a lot of time listening,” he tells ABC Audio. “It was like a real perk of the job. I mean, I felt like, ‘I’m listening to albums. That’s my work for the day. … Lucky me.’ But … somehow being familiar [with the songs] felt important.”
Fortune-Lloyd also studied up on Epstein, who died in 1967, and he concludes that Epstein was the “perfect manager” for The Beatles because he “understood what artists needed to create.”
He says, “When people talk about The Beatles and the extraordinary things they were doing … I think without someone like Brian looking after things, being the adult in the room, giving them the space to create and not have to worry about anything else — I don’t think they could do that.”
Midas Man is a sympathetic portrait of a troubled man, and Fortune-Lloyd said he’d “love” for Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr to see it, though he suggests it might be “difficult to watch,” seeing as how they were “so close” to Epstein.
“I’ve been made aware that they know about the film, and I really hope that they get to see it,” he says. “I hope they recognize and appreciate that we tried to honor the man and their relationship, and we created a loving portrayal of their friend. So, it’d be beautiful to share it with them.”
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