So Much Younger

It was a long and winding journey to bring “In His Life: The John Lennon Story” to the small screen. The drama, which chronicles the life of the late Beatles’ singer from the age of 16 to 24, premieres Sunday on NBC, just five days before the 20th anniversary of Lennon’s death.

Shot entirely in Lennon’s hometown of Liverpool, England, at many of the locations that helped shape his life--including his original home--”In His Life” stars newcomer Phillip McQuillan in the title role and Blair Brown as Mimi Smith, the strict aunt who raised Lennon after his own mother, Julia, left to raise another family.

The project began last year when executive producer-writer Michael O’Hara read about Sotheby’s auction of Lennon’s first guitar. “At the end of the story, there was a little anecdote about how he came to get his first guitar,” says O’Hara, a longtime Beatles fan. “It talked about his mother and his relationship with his aunt.”

Shortly thereafter, he picked up a biography on Lennon to read on a plane flight. “That night [after the trip], I sketched out a movie,” he says. “I had a vision of what the movie should be and what period [it should be in].”

The project was quickly snapped up by ABC. “When I sold it to ABC, I made all the points that Beatlemania was coming back [in 2000],” recalls O’Hara, referring to the recently published “Beatles Anthology,” the new CD of their No. 1 hits and the anniversary of Lennon’s murder.

But the project stalled because ABC doesn’t have a movie night during the fall football season. O’Hara’s agent got permission from the network to shop it elsewhere. “Within 24 hours, NBC said ‘yes,’ ” says O’Hara. “But by that time I was two months behind schedule.”

Instead of having three months for preproduction, he and director David Carson had only about five weeks.

“The biggest nightmare was trying to get John,” O’Hara recalls. After going through traditional casting methods in England, the production held an open call in London.

“More media people showed up than potential Johns,” he says. “There were guys who looked more like John Belushi than John Lennon. If you don’t have a credible John Lennon, you won’t have a movie.”

Next stop was Liverpool, where several candidates materialized, but all older than what the script called for. “There was one guy in particular who was so authentic, he freaked everybody out. But he was 40,” says O’Hara. “He said, ‘I can play 17.’ I said, ‘Do you by any chance have a son?’ So after that I was really frantic.”

O’Hara thought about going to Australia and Scotland, but decided instead on a quick trip to Dublin because, during a previous visit, he noticed “it was an incredible young city with a lot of musicians.”

The casting call drew its share of oddballs. “We had one guy who took a bus from Northern Ireland. He was 36 and 4-foot-11. I turned to the director and said, ‘What mirror was this guy looking in when he got up this morning?’ The director said, ‘Whatever mirror he was looking in, we should buy it.’ ”

Also showing up at the audition was McQuillan, 23, a musician-actor who was working for a music company. Though they were unimpressed with his reading, he asked if he could sing a song.

“He was very charismatic when he started singing,” says O’Hara. McQuillan and five other finalists were put on tape for NBC executives, who were all taken with the charming Irishman.

“It kind of took two days to peel me off the ceiling when I found out,” says McQuillan, who plays the guitar in the film and performs several songs. “I was involved in a theater group and building up a repertory of small showcase performances that probably gave me enough confidence to tackle the audition.”

Filming in Liverpool, McQuillan says, really helped him get into Lennon’s skin. He was especially inspired being in Lennon’s childhood home.

“When I first walked in the house, I sat up in his room for 20 minutes to have a good think about everything in general in John’s life,” he says. “I thought about all the fantasies he had when he was younger--the dreams he had as a young man and what he went on to do.”

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“In His Life: The John Lennon Story” airs Sunday at 9 p.m. on NBC. The network has rated it TV-14 (may be unsuitable for children under the age of 14).