Working from Walter Isaacson’s best-selling biography, STEVE JOBS is directed by Academy Award winner Danny Boyle and written by Academy Award winner Aaron Sorkin. The film takes us behind the scenes of the digital revolution to create a revealing portrait of the man at its epicentre. STEVE JOBS stars Michael Fassbender in the title role, Academy Award® winner Kate Winslet, Seth Rogen, Jeff Daniels, Michael Stuhlbarg, and Katherine Waterston. Boyle, Fassbender and Winslet will attend the Closing Night Gala, which marks the film’s European Premiere, on Sunday October 18 at the Odeon Leicester Square. STEVE JOBS is the third film directed by Boyle to close the BFI London Film Festival, following SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE (2008) and 127 HOURS (2010).
Spanning a period of 14 years between 1984 and 1998 the story is built around three seminal product launches — of the Macintosh in 1984, the NeXT ‘Cube’ in 1988 and the iMac in 1998 — and it uses this innovative structure to create a cross-hatched portrait of Jobs’ life and to tell the story of the new mass-market technologies that have revolutionised how we communicate with one another.
Luckily I was in attendance for The Fan Carpet at the Steve Jobs press conference and managed to get a few insights from the attending cast and crew.
The key people responsible for the success of the film were in attendance: Danny Boyle (director), Michael Stuhlbarg (portraying Andy Hertzfeld), Katherine Waterston (portraying Chrisann Brennan), Michael Fassbender (portraying Steve Jobs), Kate Winslet (portraying Joanna Hoffman), Jeff Daniels (portraying John Sculley) and last, but not least, Aaron Sorkin (writer).
In regards to the film being called Shakespearian and being somewhat similar to a play, Aaron Sorkin said “I am most confident as a play writer, I feel that I kind of faked my way through movies. My parents started to take me to see plays since I was very little, and I loved the song of the dialogue. It sounded like music to me, so I wanted to imitate that song. I don’t have much of visual sense. And, in that case you need a director with great visual sense, one who is able to get great performances out of the greatest actors and of course, that’s where Danny Boyle came in.”
Kate Winslet was very enthusiastic and confessed her relaxation came from being at home. Regarding working with Michael and first finding out she confessed “Holy shit! Michael Fassbender?! I am going to be his friend and I am going to help him. And I am going to hold his hand! And I think I can safely say he didn’t need any of those things.”
During the press conference Aaron Sorkin ended up being highly praised by all the members of the cast. The first was Katherine by stating “That’s the thing about Sorkin, you know the part is going to be good even before reading the script. Even the small parts, he gives every actor something to do. I find his writing so touching because it gives so much to the actors.”
Michael Stuhlbarg followed “The remarkable ability Aaron has to condense such a story and make it so thrilling, to pinpoint these big moments happening in Mr. Jobs’ life, is like giving the story a different kind of life. It’s a huge achievement and I’m really proud to have been a part of it!”
When asked about how he approached the role and his working relationship with Danny, Fassbender said “Danny set everything up for and about the actors. I have to say he was so generous and patient with me many times. He set up the environment for us in such a way that we would give our best. He allowed us to be well rehearsed, do our mistakes, get a feel of the other actors and then approach it on the day and shoot fast and efficiently. Without him it would have been close to impossible.”
Kate Winslet was the one to underline the relationship they all developed and had while filming “Danny made us all collaborate and that really pulled us all together. There was no hierarchy, no fuss, you just got on with it. And that tone was set up by Danny and Michael as well. Because Michael didn’t have any stuff around him. It was just Michael, doing the job and setting the tone and that bar very high for all the actors, including the ones that used to pop in and out of the shoot.”
The conference concluded with a journalist asking both Michael and Kate if Steve Jobs has been a source of inspiration to them. Straight forward as usual, Kate Winslet said “No. I am terribly sorry, but no. Do I think he was extraordinary? Yes, I do actually. And I think that because of the relationship Steve and Joanna had as friends. That meant I had a sort of backstage pass in term of information about Steve and stories about him and I can honestly say that I think that if I would have met him, I would have liked him. Probably because Joanna did love him.”
Michael Fassbender had a sort of different stand however “After all of this, in a way, yes. I think everybody who rolls the dice like that, these guys who could just sit back and enjoy the hundreds of millions that they have made, but still put it all back in and risk it again, I think that is pretty extraordinary. And very inspiring.”
Steve Jobs will be released today in the UK.
See full article on The Fan Carpet.
