00:03I read the script and it is a starburst of a script, I mean it is like, takes your breath
00:09away, I mean obviously there's so many things you could think about at that point, reasons not to do it,
00:15you know, like, which are all to do with being careful, should you really be doing, you know, a film
00:19about a person like this, a controversial person like this, with many people with different opinions and there'll be family
00:27and all those kind of stuff, we've been through some of that on
00:29127 hours that we've done, the problems of doing true stories, if you call them that, but actually you read
00:36the script and it felt like you would be crazy not to do it, it was extraordinary, it was something,
00:41I'd never done anything like it before, the challenges that it gave you were staggering and it took on the
00:52idea that he'd begun, that Sorkin had begun with Social Network, which is to look at these people who create
00:57this modern world and that we
00:59we are talking about the forgers of the world we're living in and we're only just really beginning to live
01:04in it now and the people who create this world for them, for us and what cost has that had
01:13for them and what can we learn about them by our artists like Sorkin.
01:23There are two people who are ultimately almost more important than Jobs himself in the film and they're Joanna Hoffman
01:32and Lisa Brennan-Jobs who Sorkin talked to and don't feature that, only feature very briefly in the book itself,
01:42but I think for Aaron they were clearly fundamental to him being able to write about Jobs.
01:47And we always used to think that this was a, in a way his behaviour, some people regard him as
01:53a monster and if you do regard him like that then this is a monster made beautiful by language and
01:59by these two women really, who are the way that the subject is humanised really and prevents you from being
02:06in a tech, geek world or in a world of just rumour and gossip, it allows you to feel really.
02:13And I think that's what's extraordinary about Sorkin's work is that he takes these extraordinary figures who are almost beyond
02:20feeling in a way, their achievements, their ability and he connects them with something we can all feel really.
02:32He's taking these extraordinary figures, which is what Shakespeare used to do, and he's grounding them in stuff that we
02:38all suffer from, whether that's ambition and vanity, ego, whatever the flaws are, we all suffer from them to certain
02:48levels and certain degrees.
02:51So in a way he's a kind of, I hate me for saying it, I think he is a bit
02:55of a modern Shakespeare the way he writes, you know, and certainly there's that, you felt that in reading the
03:00script.
03:00I mean the script was almost 200 pages long and I mean I hope the film has the same kind
03:06of experience for people, you read it like that, I mean it's gone.
03:15You speculate and hope and think that they might be able to deal with the pressure of it, but you
03:20never really know.
03:21I was astonished because he, I mean I've never seen this before, even on regular films where parts are, you
03:30know, a 20th, good parts are a 20th of the size of this part.
03:34I never saw him on set with a script or sides, ever. I never saw him check them. He sort
03:42of learnt it, that doesn't do him sufficient value to say he learnt it.
03:49He kind of absorbed it in a way that wasn't to do with rote learning, you know, in the way
03:54you might imagine learning a speech.
03:55You have a speech, you learn it, you practice it, you kind of like think, oh I got that bit
03:59wrong.
03:59The guy just knew it like he'd written it and he didn't get any of it wrong, it wasn't like,
04:05and Sorkin's a stickler for his punctuation and the rhythm and stuff like that.
04:09He didn't get any of it wrong, he was never wrong.
04:15Right early on, I thought it was brilliant, he said, well no, every time I talk to her I'm trying
04:20to teach her something, regardless of what everybody else is saying about the relationship and, you know, you know, and
04:27he said regardless of what I'm saying about the relationship, every time I speak to her I'm trying to teach
04:31her something.
04:32And he was right, of course, when you looked at it, and he was. He was actually, if you look
04:36at it very carefully, each time he's communicating, he doesn't want to be talking to her sometimes because he wants
04:41to be in this other world, you know, which he's creating this other thing, which is his child.
04:46I mean, it's very simple really, I think, is that his dedication was so much to this idea of what
04:52he was doing that he didn't feel he could be in any other world and this other world was this
04:56child and he didn't feel he could be in it until he learned that he could be in both these
05:01worlds, I think, which is the kind of trajectory of the journey of the story.
05:08Because you do a film like this, it's like, well, are you going to get lookalikes or what, you know,
05:12and you can get lookalikes, you know, you can get decent actors, good actors who are lookalikes, but you need
05:18great actors really, you know, but there's something in them that is the essence of the character and, you know,
05:25it's not a replica, we're not taking photographs, it's not, you know, there's no photographs at the end of the
05:30film of what the people really look like or anything like that.
05:33This is portraits of people, you know, but the essence of something about them is there.
05:43He says the nature of people is something to be overcome.
05:46He wants to transform people, which is worrying in one sense, except, of course, what he's actually doing because he's
05:52in the world of communication, it's ultimately liberated us.
05:55I think they'll sense that from, you know, the way that this world has changed by what he's been able
06:00to do, because it's about mobilising everybody, you know.
06:06He says, he has this speech, right, it comes at the end of the film, but it's chronologically, it's at
06:12the beginning of the film, is that imagine having this power, not just in good people's hands, in everyone's hands.
06:20Imagine, that was the idea that everybody can have this and everybody does have it now.
06:23You know, we all got it now.
06:25We've all got access to, instant access to all information straight away.
06:31So then, it's just the question of what are you going to do with it, and that's up to us,
06:34and that's up to everyone now, what we do with this power, you know.
06:38Steve Jams.
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