Steve Jobs writer Aaron Sorkin stopped by Tuesday’s Daily Show to offer his thoughts on Apple’s concern over how the film portrays the company’s late co-founder.
Sorkin told host Trevor Noah that Apple’s worries about the Danny Boyle-directed movie are premature, explaining: “The people saying that haven’t seen the movie actually, so they don’t know what I made him look like.”
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“But I apologized right away anyway because I realized it is a building full of people that can hack into my hard drive and do anything they want,” Sorkin joked.
Sorkin explained that “this movie is not a biopic,” as it instead focuses on just three pivotal product launches for Apple.
He also pointed out that he struggled with how to show Jobs’ relationship with his daughter Lisa, of whom Jobs had initially denied paternity. Sorkin said that talking with the real-life Lisa allowed him to see that she did not harbor resentment toward her father.
“I couldn’t get past Steve’s treatment of his daughter, and I didn’t know how we were going to celebrate the iPhone and the iPod when this was going on,” Sorkin said. “It was Lisa who helped me get past it — she’s a remarkable woman now. I thought, if Lisa can get through it, surely I can.”
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Noah brought up the fact that Facebook was also mad at Sorkin for his portrayal of Mark Zuckerberg in 2010’s The Social Network, for which Sorkin won the best screenplay Oscar.
“I’m absolutely done with Silicon Valley — you don’t want to make these people mad at you,” Sorkin joked.
Apple CEO Tim Cook previously referred to the Steve Jobs filmmakers as “opportunistic,” leading Sorkin to fire back: “If you’ve got a factory full of children in China assembling phones for 17 cents an hour you’ve got a lot of nerve calling someone else opportunistic.” Sorkin later apologized for his remarks.
