Aaron Sorkin Spits About The Steve Jobs Biopic, Compares It To Writing About the Beatles.

Aaron Sorkin is the master of dialogue and the wizard of wit, and with such distinctions comes luxurious gigs, such as his latest one. Being tasked with writing the Steve Jobs biopic, Sorkin compares it to writing about The Beatles. Oh Aaron, you’re not star struck, are you? Let me touch your hair. It is gorgeous.

Slashfilm:

In a talk at the AllThingsD conference this week, Sorkin admitted his hesitation about tackling a modern icon, and offered a few thoughts on how he might want to approach the task at hand. Read more of his comments after the jump.

“It is a little like writing about The Beatles,” Sorkin said during the conference. The writer added that he foresaw “a minefield of disappointment” from Jobs fans who would inevitably criticize any decision Sorkin made, perhaps recalling some of the heat he took for his embellished portrayal of Zuckerberg in The Social Network.

Sorkin has yet to start actually writing the screenplay – “It’s a process of procrastination, where you’re trying to figure out where the movie is going,” he observes – but he does have a few ideas about how he’d like to do it. Though the Sony film takes Walter Isaacson‘s bestselling biography as its source material, the scribe reiterated his earlier comments about wanting to “shake the cradle-to-grave” structure of a traditional biopic. Instead, he intends to “identify the point of friction that appeals to [him] and dramatize that.”

In addition, Sorkin emphasized that his biopic would be “a painting, not a photograph”; that is, an interpretation of the true story rather than a dead-on recreation of it. Still, this is Sorkin, so don’t expect him to totally gloss over the details. Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, who remained in touch with Jobs to his death, signed on a few weeks ago to advise on both the technical and character aspects of the film.

As for which lucky actor might get to step into those famous New Balance 991s, Sorkin claimed to have no idea who was in the mix. But, he said, whoever got the gig would have to “talk fast and be smart.” (And presumably be good at walking briskly while doing so.) “Intelligence is something actors can’t fake,” he noted.

Who would you want to see play Jobs in this flick? Or direct it, for that matter.