Danny Boyle on 'Steve Jobs': Casting Michael Fassbender, Apple's Lack of Involvement, Accuracy

In a new interview with The Daily Beast, Steve Jobs director Danny Boyle spoke about many aspects of the movie, from why he casted Michael Fassbender to Apple's lack of involvement with the film and whether it's accurate to the life of Steve Jobs.

After Christian Bale dropped out of the role and Sony Pictures courted the likes of Leonardo DiCaprio and Bradley Cooper, the production chose Michael Fassbender to play the Apple co-founder. Boyle admits Fassbender doesn't look like Jobs, but says that there's a drive inside Fassbender that resembles Jobs.

What I saw in Michael was, aside from him being a great actor, this obsessive dedication to his craft, which I felt made him perfect for Jobs. Even though he doesn’t look exactly like him, by the end of the film, you believe it’s him.

Boyle goes on to say that he "won't even pretend to say that this is the definitive portrait of Jobs," noting that he acknowledges that some people will take the movie in a different way. Boyle says the film attempts to show as much of Jobs as possible, but that they weren't able to fully capture everything about him.

As Raymond Chandler said, in any work of art there’s a sense of redemption. He clearly achieves that in his other family, which we don’t touch on. He did move towards knowing that even though he did make the most beautiful things in the world, he himself was poorly made. The ability to recognize that is a big step. He is our hero, if you want to call him that.

Finally, Boyle speaks a little about Apple's lack of involvement in the film. In a recent interview with The Daily Beast, Ridley Scott, who directed Apple's famous "1984" commercial, said that the filmmakers wanted to include the commercial in the film. However, Apple wouldn't agree because they didn't like the direction the film takes. "It's about his daughter," Scott tells The Daily Beast. "Which is an odd choice because he was a genius designer and visionary."

Sources at Universal Pictures tell The Daily Beast that Apple was "not helpful" in the making of the film. When asked about whether Apple tried to obstruct the making of Steve Jobs, Boyle dodges the question and says "We've had our struggles and we're going to get the film out there, and once we get the film out there, I'm sure we can talk about all that."

The full Daily Beast interview goes more in-depth with Danny Boyle, touching on the movie's behind-the-scenes drama after the Sony hack, the film's unique structure and more.