Christian Bale confirmed to play Steve Jobs in upcoming biopic penned by Aaron Sorkin
Christian Bale, who has played Batman in “The Dark Knight Trilogy” and is set to be seen as Moses in “Exodus: Gods and Kings,” has been confirmed to portray another larger-than-life role: that of Steve Jobs.
Bale is indeed set to star in Sony’s upcoming biopic about the late Apple cofounder and CEO, according to the film’s screenwriter, Aaron Sorkin.
“We needed the best actor on the board in a certain age range and that’s Chris Bale,” Sorkin said in an interview with Bloomberg’s Emily Chang in an upcoming edition of “Studio 1.0,” adding that the Oscar-winning method actor didn’t have to audition.
Bale won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in 2011 for his role in “The Fighter.”
Sorkin is an Oscar winner himself, having won an Academy Award for writing the screenplay of “The Social Network” aka the Facebook movie, based on “The Accidental Billionaires” by Ben Mezrich.
Sorkin’s script for the upcoming Jobs biopic (not to be confused with last year’s “Jobs” movie starring Ashton Kutcher) is based on the “Steve Jobs” biography written by Walter Isaacson. It’s said to be divided into three 30-minute scenes, with each scene taking place behind the scenes of a major product launch, e.g. the original Mac, the NeXT cube, and the iPod (which, incidentally, was introduced 13 years ago today).
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Given that plot outline and the screenwriter’s penchant for fast-paced dialogue, it’s not surprising that Sorkin deems the Jobs role a challenging part to play even for Bale.
“He has more words to say in this movie than most people have in three movies combined,” Sorkin said. “There isn’t a scene or a frame that he’s not in. So it’s an extremely difficult part and he is gonna crush it.”
According to Sorkin, the film is scheduled to begin principal photography in the next couple of months.
The yet untitled project is set to be helmed by Danny Boyle, who won an Oscar in 2009 for directing “Slumdog Millionaire.”
David Fincher, the Oscar-nominated director of “The Social Network,” was previously attached to the project, but ultimately dropped out. His top choice to play Jobs was none other than Bale.
Bale’s confirmation for the part of Jobs comes three weeks after Leonardo DiCaprio, who was Oscar-nominated for playing the biographical title characters in “The Aviator” and “The Wolf of Wall Street,” was reported to have backed out of taking on the plum role.