Here I go again, another Apple post! However, this one is a little more jobs focused, as in Steve Jobs.
I recently became aware that Hollywood is doing a rendition of Steve Jobs' and Steve Wozniak's fantastic journey to the top from the California garage in which they started. Obviously, my first question was, who will play Jobs? It's an impossible feat! Once I googled the movie, I immediately found out it would be Ashton Kutcher. At first, I had mixed feelings about this. For one, I definitely think Ashton has the look down, the scraggly beard, skinny and emaciated body, bony facial structure. However, I seemed to doubt Ashton's acting capacity. I still think of Ashton as the funny Kelso from That 70's Show or the stoner from Dude, Where's My Car? Would he have the ability to pull off the deep psychological aspects that characterize Steve? Is he able to portray the intensity, the passion, the temper, the reality distortion feild??
Coming from someone who basically idolizes Steve Jobs, I am doubtful that Ashton Kutcher will be able to pull off this amazing feat, a feat that no doubt would be hard for even DeNiro or Clooney to do. The reason why is because Steve was such a dynamic person, filled with paradoxes. His dream and passion was to do the impossible by creating products for consumers that they would love. He ignored the complexities of technologies and pushed for a simplistic approach to computers. He was a simple guy himself, following Buddhist practices of fasting, eating the most purest of foods around the world (which was fruit, hence the name Apple), and had a problem with filling his house with furniture because he was such a perfectionist. So what made Steve so successful? Was it his drive? His temper? His ability to literally distort reality and convince people they could do the impossible? To me, it was a mixture of all of these. He had a knack for knowing what people want and an appreciation for quality. In terms of a marketer, he was purely genius. He was known for saying, "Consumers do not know what they want until we show them." This is obviously a backward approach, coming from a marketing student myself. We are taught so heavily in school to give the consumer what they want, when Steve takes a totally different approach. He was always pushing the envelope, doing things differently, and in laments terms, really pissing people off.
However, after looking on Mashable, I must say I am respectful of Kutcher for trying. There was an article describing Ashton's journey through making the movie and how it 'changed his life.' In order to prepare for the role, he downloaded thousands of clips of Steve's voice, studying them daily in order to get his voice down. He also took on Jobs' crazy eating habits and recently made headline news when his pancreas failed, which happens to be no surprise since pancreatic cancer was the taker of Steve. So, I must say I give him credit for putting in the amount of effort he is.
It will be interesting to see how Ashton does in the role. Hopefully, he does Steve Jobs justice!
Source:
http://mashable.com/2013/01/31/kutcher-macworld/
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