Q&A with Paul McCartney and Morgan Neville

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“Man on the Run” is a 2025 documentary film focusing on Paul McCartney’s life and career during the 1970s. It was directed by Morgan Neville.

The film was announced in February 2023 and premiered on August 30, 2025, at the Telluride Film Festival in Colorado. Amazon MGM subsequently acquired the distribution rights.

Ahead of its general release on Amazon Prime Video on February 27, 2026, a special screening was held in London on February 18, 2026. The event was attended by Paul McCartney and director Morgan Neville.

The screening was followed by an on-stage interview with Paul and Morgan, conducted by BBC presenter Lauren Laverne.

Lauren Laverne: I can welcome back to the stage Morgan Neville and Paul McCartney. Fantastic. Did you love that as much as I did? Did anybody cry? I knew you would cry — you cried just at the idea and no one knew! Poor you. Paul, sit down, take a seat.

Paul McCartney: Exhausting.

Lauren Laverne: Well, that’s one word for it. I mean, congratulations, Morgan. What a beautiful documentary. So gorgeously made and Paul so incredibly personal. I mean, very emotional to watch. Very touching. I mean, how does it feel to you sitting and watching that back in the room?

Paul McCartney: Um, it’s like drowning, you know? It’s like your life flashing in front of you. It’s exhausting for me, you know, because it’s such a story and I’m reminded, you know, we tried to follow the Beatles. It’s like, you know, it’s mad.

Lauren Laverne: Well, brave. I mean, do you see the bravery in it now looking back?

Paul McCartney: Yeah. You know, I’d actually just seen the madness, you know, but um yeah, you know, but I think it was so impossible to do something like that that the only way you could do it was just in a kind of looney way that we did it. Just you think, yeah, we’ll just go back to square one and we’ll just go show up at an university, don’t book hotels and just you take the dogs in a van and you know for some reason we thought that was like a great idea.

Lauren Laverne: but it’s not just artistically but it’s you becoming a dad, you establishing your family, I mean why was that something that you wanted to look at, you know, this incredible decade of Paul’s life?

Morgan Neville: I was of the age when I was buying Wings albums… those were some of the first albums I was buying. Now I loved the Beatles, but I felt like Wings were more my band. My dad was the Beatles fan and I was the Wings fan. And so, I knew this era, there was a lot more to say about it. But then when I really started to look into it, the questions that Paul was trying to ask of himself were questions that I felt were kind of universal. You know, how you deal with your own legacy and the expectations people have of you. Uh, how do you balance your career with your family? And I think in Paul’s case, he made them kind of one and the same. And that I thought was completely inspirational.

Lauren Laverne: And for you, Paul, I mean, you know, why did you say yes to this project and and to Morgan? Why did you want to tell the story in this way?

Paul McCartney: Well, I mean, Morgan just came up and I could just see he was such a fan, you know, and it was like really genuine that it wasn’t just “I want to make a movie to just…” I don’t know, for money or anything. It was just, no, he really wanted to look into it and do it. So, I just realized how genuine he was. So, you know, like all the other stuff, I just said, “Yeah, okay.” You know, cuz I do that. People say, “Do you want to do this, you know, on Sunday?” I go, “Yeah.” It’s not always a good idea, but this was a good idea.

Morgan Neville: There’s one thing you told me recently that’s not in the film about what Linda would say to you when you would present ideas. If you would have an idea, maybe the van tour or something…

Paul McCartney: Yeah, I mean, if there’s ideas like that were a little bit crazy or I say, “should I do that? Could I do that?” And she’d say, “It’s allowed.” And it was like, “Yeah, that’s brilliant”. It’s a great philosophy of life. “It’s allowed.”

Lauren Laverne: I love that. Paul, I was going to ask about keep all the embarrassing stuff in that you tried to get him to take out. Tell me a little bit more about that more from your point of view. How did you do it? How did you persuade him?

Morgan Neville: Um, I mean, the first time you watched it, um, I remember you had a pad of paper and you watched it with Mary and I was sitting behind you, you know, freaking out. And you were reacting to it because you’re seeing the home movies and you’re seeing your pets and you’re all this and and at the end, uh, you held your pad of paper and it was empty. It was a blank page.

Um, and then, you know, we talked about it and talked about it and you were very generous with me, the cut is 100% my cut and I’m so grateful to Paul for letting me be as tough on as I was, because I think it’s been that toughness and understanding the failures and missteps that you understand the highs and the successes and the progression to.

Lauren Laverne: And from your point of view, Paul ?

Paul McCartney: Yeah. Yeah. That was what Morgan said. You know, I say even though I didn’t write it down, I just said, “Oh, God.” You know, so many bits in it that are so embarrassing. You know, “Mary had a little lamb” and the look on Henry McCullough’s face. So I was thinking, well, maybe we could just cut those bits and, you know, just some other bits like that, the band’s routine and maybe I should just, you know, cool out my image and just lose those bits. And he said, “No, no.” He said, you know, really, let me keep them in cuz for the reason he said, you know, you’ll see all of that stuff and then the fact that you overcame it all and found yourself in the end, and kind of, you know, won.

Lauren Laverne: Yeah. And we see that in the relationships as well. Obviously the discussion of the relationship with John, that’s the trajectory there but also it struck me that, in another way, this is a family portrait, you know, it’s a portrait of your family. Tell me about that kind of aspect of it, watching something that is so much about your family and the people in your kind of inner circle, your extended musical family.

Paul McCartney: Yeah. Um well, you know, as it shows in the film, I knew John from a very early age and we were just a couple of rock and roll fans and we just enjoyed hanging out together. We started writing little songs around my place and you know, my dad had a pipe in his drawer, so we thought we’d smoke it. We couldn’t find any tobacco, so we we we smoked tea.

It was like, you know, all those things. We had all of those memories in common. And so we went through the whole trajectory of the Beatles. And um so he was always just that guy to me, even when he was being really mean, you know, and I was having to just take it.

At the same time, it was like… It’s just John. He does that, you know, he always done that, so I think that made it a little bit easier, but yeah I loved him, you know. I loved all the guys in the Beatles. We had so much in common and we were like a little magical foursome. I try and think of how else it could have been, you know. But just with me, John, George, and Ringo, it was just a magic grouping. And, uh, we hope we did okay.

Lauren Laverne: You certainly did. And that’s very kind of skilfully woven in with conversations with friends and family. Tell me a little bit about that, Morgan, putting that archive together. I mean, that must have been quite an undertaking.

Morgan Neville: Yeah. I mean, I think when I first talked to Scott about it and I said, “Well, what kind of archive does Paul have?” And he said, “Well, next to a presidential library, Paul has the best archive.” And I got very excited. Uh, and there were a lot of people and everybody who spent years kind of helping take everything we can. It also helped that you married a photographer, she took this list of pictures of everything, and took whole movies, the fact that you took so many home movies too.

Paul McCartney: Well, I thought I’d lost it all, you know, cuz in the in the 60s and 70s, um, you’d have a lot of breakins. Well, you wouldn’t really bother locking your door too much. So, fans would come in and just nick a lot of stuff and so it’s just like how it worked.

So, I kind of automatically just thought, well, it’s all gone. But kids at my office were fantastic. They looked in every little, you know, storage unit and every little drawer and everything and they found it all. And so they they locked it. We deal with Hewlett Packard. We were on tour. Instead of taking a lot of money off them, we did a deal where they logged it all. They digitized it all. So it all come together with, like I say, the kids in my office. And so it’s all there. It’s amazing stuff that I didn’t even… I thought we lost them all.

Lauren Laverne: And did anything surprise you? You know, there must have been stuff that came up in the film that you’ve forgotten about or hadn’t seen for a lifetime.

Paul McCartney: Yeah, I think all the stuff with the kids and Linda, you know, is lovely to see. I mean, obviously the Linda stuff was very emotional obviously cuz she looks so beautiful. She’s so cool. Yeah, she is. So that comes over.

Lauren Lavern: And you, Morgan?

Morgan Neville: I mean, so many things. Um, but again the kind of relatability of what you were doing, of the kind of not second-guessing your own creative instincts and kind of going with it, you know, the kind of freedom of that… And maybe some of those ideas were a little strange… Like “Mull Of Kintyre” is a strange idea, you know. So just that sense of freedom, you know, was something that I just loved and drew inspiration from.

Lauren Laverne: There’s that lovely comment as well where, Paul, you’re asked “what are you going to do now that you left the Beatles” and you say, “well, my only plan is to grow up.” What did you mean at the time? And looking back at that period, actually, what do you think growing up really meant?

Paul McCartney: Well, I think you know with the Beatles we were just lads. Everyone, all our management used to call us “the boys” and even though we were like up in our 30s and stuff “the boys”. Yeah. Um, so that we were always like young people and then when I got married and then there was a baby on the way, um, I had to grow up. I thought we can’t just go, you know, just being these boys anymore. Um, so it was time to just think about stuff. Um, and so even though the film is kind of mad and what you’re seeing is all our insane decisions, in the background, it was some sensible decisions too, you know. We also had like a sensible life, it’s great to see it. I’m glad that Morgan put it together in the way that he did. Um yeah, you know, I have my questions about things, but I think it works. I think that’s the thing, you know, overall it just tells the story and somehow it works.

Lauren Laverne: Well, it does and it is very interesting looking at this. You could go back and meet yourself then. Would you give to get through that moment? We must be extraordinary.

Paul McCartney: Um, yeah. I don’t know. I I think you just say it’s going to be all right. Um, but I say that’s me. Uh, I realize, you know, you kind of go through life and then you start to see yourself and not just in the mirror, but you you sort of start to realize what your character is. Um, that’s one of my things is just when someone makes a suggestion or I make a suggestion of an idea, I don’t think… You see some people get really heavy breathing like well “I’m not sure we really should do this, let me ask the management and let me ask the label what should I do”, and so with me it’s like “no no we’re we’re just doing it.” So, I’ve always been like that in shows and film, but yeah, it it natural to me to do it like that, is to be very enthusiastic about something. And so, I don’t always see the pitfalls. Cuz I’m not looking for them. Just, you know, hey, hey, let’s make some music. Um, so I just enjoy it. Uh, so you know, that’s me. That’s what how I do it.

Lauren Laverne: Some of the voices [?] that we’re hearing, do you not tend to forget some of them?

Paul McCartney: […] There was there’s that one. I’m at the piano. It’s “All of you”. And you know, I just hadn’t heard that one for a long time. “Arrow Through Me,” I hadn’t heard that one for quite a while. So, uh yeah, you know, it’s good cuz they do sound good and cuz it’s then. It’s the young beautiful me singing it all, you know. So that was one of the things I was glad that Morgan said, “We’re not going to film it. We’re going to do audio interviews” because I hate those interviews, you know, you get someone by a recording desk and they look old and grizzly. […]

Lauren Laverne: And final question, you know, for either of you was […]

Paul McCartney: It’s just when it was finished, it’s a heck of a story. So, um I think that it would be nice if people took away the fact that in my craziness and my enthusiasm that we did this crazy story, but um we stuck with it and we made it work. So, there’s something brave about, it didn’t have to work out, but it did.

Lauren Laverne: It’s such a wonderful film. Thank you both.