Ed Sheeran Says His New Movie “Yesterday” Has Such A “Great Concept”

Ed Sheeran stars as himself in Yesterday, the new film from director Danny Boyle and Love, Actually screenwriter Richard Curtis. Ed says he wanted to be involved in theBeatles-themed movie because it’s just such an intriguing concept.

“I think the great thing about it is you can tell [someone] in 14 seconds what the film’s about and they’re instantly interested,” he says. “You just say, ‘Oh, someone gets hit in the head and wakes up and The Beatles never existed. So he becomes the biggest artist in the world singing Beatles songs.’ And they’re like, ‘That sounds like a greatconcept for a film!’”

More specifically, Yesterday is about a struggling musician named Jack — played by Himesh Patel — who’s hit by a bus and then wakes up in in a world where nobody remembers the Beatles but him. He passes off their songs as his and when he becomes a star, Ed takes him under his wing and helps him navigate it all.

In the film, Patel actually sang and played the Beatles’ songs, sometimes in front of massive crowds — and Ed says he was super-impressed with the actor’s musical talent.

“The moment I met Himesh, I was like, ‘This is such a good casting…but at some point, he’s gonna have to sing,’” Ed recalls. “And then I heard him sing ‘[The] Long and Winding Road’ when we were in rehearsals and I was like, ‘Wow!’”

“He can really sing. He can really play,” Ed continues. “But it’s not robotic. It doesn’t sound trained. It sounds like there’s heart in it — which is I think difficult to get.”

You may want to see Yesterday just to hear a new Ed song called “One Life.” It’s in the movie, but it’s not on the soundtrack album.