"Steve Jobs", which wil arrive in theaters on Oct. 9, features an actor who admits that he has no single similarity whatsoever to Steve Jobs. Speaking with the Entertainment Weekly, Irish actor Michael Fassbender said viewers will only see him looking like Jobs by the movie's third act. In that particular part of the film, he wears a wig, rimless glasses and the black turtleneck which Jobs is very much associated with.
"Obviously, I don't look anything like Steve Jobs", Fassbender told the Entertainment Weekly. Actually, this was the very first thing he told Director Danny Boyle when he was asked to play the part. He told the director that Christian Bale, who originally was asked to play the role but had backed out, looks a lot more like Jobs. Asked how he prepared for the role given the big challenge of looking nothing like Jobs, Fassbender said jokingly: "I studied Ashton Kutcher."
When Bale backed out for the role, Sony considered many award-winning actors as replacement. At some point, Bradley Cooper was considered. So was Matthew McConaughey and Leonardo DiCaprio, until Sony finally ended up with Fassbender.
Speaking with The Daily Beast, Boyle said that Fassbender is the perfect man for the role because aside from being the great actor that he is, Fassbender is also very passionate about acting. "What I saw in Michael was, aside from him being a great actor, this obsessive dedication to his craft, which I felt made him perfect for Jobs. Even though he doesn't look exactly like him, by the end of the film, you believe it's him," Boyle said of Fassbender.
"Steve Jobs" is presented like a three-act play, according to The Daily Beast. It will present Jobs as he starts Apple Macintosh in 1984. The movie will then show him working for NeXT Computer in 1988 after being fired from Apple. Finally, the film will show Jobs as he creates the iMac in 1998 after being rehired at Apple. The movie may seem to be created heavily in the milieu of the tech world, but the main driving force of the film is Job's relationship with his estranged daughter, Lisa Brennan.
Overall, the film is brilliantly written, complete with the best performance of actors and the right amount of humor and emotions into it, original Mac team member Andy Hertzfeld told Re/Code. Hertzfeld described the film as a complete deviation from the reality. "It is cavalier about the facts but aspires to explore and expose the deeper truths behind Steve's unusual personality and behavior, and it often but not always succeeds at that," Hertzfeld said.