Chris Martin was the first choice for ‘Yesterday’, not Ed Sheeran

Film maker Danny Boyle has revealed he initially wanted to cast Chris Martin as a superstar singer in his latest “Yesterday”, but it was ultimately Ed Sheeran who landed the gig.

The upcoming musical-comedy, with screenplay by Richard Curtis, follows a struggling musician Jack (Himesh Patel) as he wakes up to discover he is the only person who remembers The Beatles. In the movie, Sheeran plays an instrumental role, discovering Jack’s music, which is actually the music of the Beatles, and taking him on the road as his opening act.

“In the first script, it was written as Chris Martin, from Coldplay,” Boyle told Entertainment Weekly. The director said he tried to convince Martin for the project, but the musician had recently completed a twoyear world tour with Coldplay and wanted to spend some time with his family.