Meet 20 Other Cast Members from The Beatles' 'A Hard Day's Night'

July 6 holds an extraordinary place in Beatles history.

On that date in 1956, a 16-year-old John Lennon met a 15-year-old Paul McCartney in a church auditorium in Liverpool. Lennon was performing with his school skiffle band, the Quarrymen. If their paths hadn’t crossed that day, it’s hard to imagine what might have become of the Beatles, if anything at all.

But fate had other plans, and exactly eight years later on July 6, 1964, the Beatles’ first film premiered at the London Pavilion. The film, A Hard Day’s Night, received much acclaim. The Village Voice famously called it “the Citizen Kane of jukebox musicals”. It went on to earn two Academy Awards, one for Best Screenplay (Alun Owen) and another for Best Score (Adaptation) (George Martin).

Certainly, none of the Beatles were trained actors, though they were seasoned entertainers, used to captivating an audience.

“It was very hard to just learn a line and say it, because we’ve never done that sort of thing before,” McCartney said in a 1964 press conference promoting the film. “We’ve always just thought of something and said it, rather than actually reading something on a piece of paper. But I think towards the end of making the film, we got the hang of it a little bit more. At first, it was very frightening, you know. It was nerve-wracking trying to say these things as though we meant them — ‘cuz that takes training as an actor, I reckon. So you know, we had to try and make it look convincing without having any experience.”

While the spotlight was on the Fab Four, the rest of the cast comprised several accomplished actors and actresses. Without their contributions, the film’s plot would have likely faltered.

Below, we’re taking a look at 20 Other Cast Members From the Beatles’ A Hard Day’s Night.