Jacob Fortune-Lloyd Says Meeting 'Larger Than Life Figure' Jay Leno to Film Midas Man 'Was Surreal' (Exclusive)

Jacob Fortune-Lloyd had a special experience working with Jay Leno on the set of his new Brian Epstein biopic Midas Man.

"It was a trip. It was surreal," Fortune-Lloyd, 37, tells PEOPLE of meeting Leno, 74, to film a key portion of the movie; Midas Man stars the British actor as Beatles manager Brian Epstein in a film that tracks Epstein's life and career from the time he discovered the Beatles at a Liverpool club in 1961 to his death at 32 in 1967.

"I grew up in the U.K. watching his show and occasionally fantasizing, 'Maybe one day I'll be on it, you never know.' And so it was surreal sitting down with him," Fortune-Lloyd says of former Tonight Show host Leno, who appears in the movie briefly as Ed Sullivan, who famously hosted the Fab Four for their their first concert in the United States live on television in 1964.

In the film, Fortune-Lloyd's Epstein and Leno's Sullivan sit down together to hash out the particulars of the Beatles' deal to perform on The Ed Sullivan Show — Leno can also be seen recreating the famous moment when Sullivan introduced the group to American television audiences.

"He is a larger than life figure," Fortune-Lloyd adds of Leno; he notes he watched Leno perform standup the night after they filmed their scene together. "I thought it was an inspired piece of casting. It's hard to find someone who can occupy that kind of role — this huge cultural maker and career breaker and maker. So I thought it was inspired. And he was lovely and he was great; he told stories and made jokes."

While Midas Man does depict the Beatles' rise to fame in Liverpool in the early 1960s and the band's arrival in the United States, the movie is first and foremost a depiction of Epstein's equally tremendous rise from furniture and record store manager to music entrepreneur. By the time of Epstein's death in 1967 — he died of an accidental overdose — he was also managing acts like Gerry and the Pacemakers and Cilla Black; in the movie, he is depicted as a workaholic while feeling like an outsider as a gay man in the 1960s.

"Understanding that side of him is kind of key to unlocking the story," Fortune-Lloyd adds of Epstein. "We're all full of contradictions, but when you read stuff about Brian and why people say about him was that he was sort of an exceptional case of someone who was living between extremes of personalities," 

Epstein seems likely to receive another turn on the big screen in Sam Mendes' upcoming four intertwining Beatles movies, which will each center around one member of the band.  "I mean, [Epstein] should be at least have a cameo in each of them," Fortune-Lloyd says when asked if he would be interested in reprising the role for a future Beatles project. "I'm open to it. If Sam comes calling, I'm down."

Midas Man is available to watch on the movie's website here.