Freaks and Geeks alum Seth Rogen is set to play the Mac community’s favorite ubergeek Steve Wozniak in the upcoming Steve Jobs biopic (no, not that one, the other one), alongside Christian Bale as Steve Jobs. Hopefully it won’t be Superbad. (Sorry.)
The news comes from Variety, which also reported that “ Jessica Chastain is being eyed for an unspecified role.” Perhaps that’ll be a composite character of every woman in Jobs’s orbit—after all, last year’s Jobs (the one starring Ashton Kutcher) was seriously bereft of women actors who weren’t playing Steve’s mother, wife, or girlfriend.
Josh Gad played Woz in Jobs, turning in a sensitive performance in which, unlike Kutcher, he didn’t sound like he was about to break down in tears at any second. The real Steve Wozniak thought the first film’s script “was crap,” although Kutcher dismissed his opinion since Woz had already signed on to consult on this new project.
The story behind the story: Despite being crucial to the story itself, Woz in Jobs was partly used as comic relief (suggesting they name their new company after various Star Trek references) and partly as the movie’s soul—the most touching scene is when Woz tells Jobs he’s leaving Apple because “Something’s happening to you, Steve.”
But the new, as-yet-untitled biopic is being written by Aaron Sorkin, based on Walter Isaacson’s weirdly boring Jobs biography, and it will reportedly unfold in three scenes that take place right before major product announcements: the original Macintosh in 1984, the debut of NeXT, and the first iPod unveiling back in 2001. Since Woz left his full-time job at Apple in 1987, his role in the second two scenes could be limited, unless Sorkin figures out how to shoehorn him in somewhere. (“Hi, Steve, just dropping by—oh hey, what’s that little white box with a screen and a wheel on it? An iPod, you say? Tell me more!”)
Besides Bale and Rogen, no other cast members have been yet confimed. Whom would you cast? Do you think Rogen would make a good Woz?
Author: Susie Ochs, Contributor
Susie has been covering Apple since 2006, and when she isn't glued to her MacBook Air and iPhone, you can find her building sand castles at the beach or snowboarding in the mountains.