--- description: Christian Bale didn’t have to audition to win the role of late Apple CEO Steve Jobs in the upcoming biopic, says screenwriter Aaron Sorkin. title: Aaron Sorkin Confirms That Christian Bale Will Play Steve Jobs image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt3f749674620182c4/698762628e0601d4b0457df6/christian-bale.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  * [Entertainment](/section/entertainment/) ## Entertainment Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close * [celebrities](/tag/celebrities/) ## celebrities Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close # Aaron Sorkin Confirms Christian Bale Will Play Steve Jobs  by [Noah Rayman](/author/noah-rayman/)  ## Noah Rayman Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Oct 23, 2014 1:15 PM CUT  Christian Bale attends the 86th Oscars on March 2, 2014 in Hollywood. Christian Bale attends the 86th Oscars on March 2, 2014 in Hollywood.Jeff Vespa—WireImage/Getty Images  by [Noah Rayman](/author/noah-rayman/)  ## Noah Rayman Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Oct 23, 2014 1:15 PM CUT Christian Bale didn’t have to audition to win the role of late Apple CEO Steve Jobs in an upcoming biopic, says screenwriter Aaron Sorkin. “Well, there was a meeting,” Sorkin [told Bloomberg Television](http://www.bloomberg.com/video/aaron-sorkin-christian-bale-best-choice-to-play-steve-jobs-4hMg0GZeREaheYe9M4LA1Q.html "undefined") in an interview confirming that the _Dark Knight_ star will play Jobs. “We needed the best actor on the board in a certain age range and that’s Chris Bale.” Sorkin, the writer behind television shows like _The West Wing_ and _The Newsroom_, is adapting Walter Isaacson’s 2011 biography for the big screen, four years after rendering Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, in the film _The Social Network._ The Academy Award winning Bale was rumored to have won the role over other possible contenders, including Matt Damon, Ben Affleck and Leonardo Dicaprio, [according](http://www.theverge.com/2014/10/23/7045083/christian-bale-to-play-steve-jobs-in-sorkin-boyle-biopic-movie "undefined") to The Verge. But Sorkin confirmed in the interview posted Thursday that Bale will fill the challenging role. “He has more words to say in this movie than most people have in three movies combined,” Sorkin said. “There isn’t a scene or a frame that he’s not in. So it’s an extremely difficult part and he is gonna crush it.” ### Biopic Actors and Their Real-Life Counterparts  Meryl Streep plays Emmeline Pankhurst in Suffragette Focus; Topical Press Agency/Getty Images  Michael Fassbender plays Steve Jobs in Steve Jobs Universal; Bob Riha Jr—Getty Images  Ellen Page plays Stacie Andree in Freeheld Lionsgate; Tom Spader—AP  Joseph Gordon Levitt plays Philippe Petit in The Walk Sony Pictures; Dave Pickoff—AP  Johnny Depp plays James 'Whitey' Bulger in Black Mass Warner Brothers; AP  André Benjamin plays Jimi Hendrix in All Is By My Side Patrick Redmond—XLrator Media; Photoshot/Getty Images  Adrien Brody plays Harry Houdini in Houdini. History Channel; Hulton Archive/Getty Images  Chadwick Boseman plays James Brown in Get On Up. Universal Pictures; Gilles Petard—Redferns/Getty Images  Ashton Kutcher plays Steven Jobs in Jobs. Open Road Films; Tom Munnecke/Getty Images  Cate Blanchett plays Bob Dylan in I'm Not There. Weinstein Co.; Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images  James Franco plays James Dean in James Dean. Getty Images (2)  Meryl Streep plays Margaret Thatcher in The Iron Lady. Weinstein Co.; Hulton Archive/Getty Images  Benedict Cumberbatch plays Julian Assange in The Fifth Estate. Disney; Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images  Anthony Hopkins plays Alfred Hitchcock in Hitchcock. Fox Searchlight; NBC/Getty Images  Salma Hayek plays Frida Kahlo in Frida. Miramax; Popperfoto/Getty Images  Gary Oldman plays Sid Vicious in Sid and Nancy. MGM; Richard E. Aaron—Redferns/Getty Images  Denzel Washington plays Malcolm X in Malcolm X. Warner Bros.; Truman Moore—The LIFE Images Collection/Getty Images  Leonardo DiCaprio plays J. Edgar Hoover in J. Edgar. Warner Bros.; Bachrach/Getty Images  Ben Kingsley plays Gandhi in Gandhi. Columbia; Gamma-Keystone/Getty Images  Michelle Williams plays Marilyn Monroe in My Week With Marilyn. Weinstein Co.; NBC/Getty Images  Joaquin Phoenix plays Johnny Cash in Walk the Line. 20th Century Fox; David Gahr/Getty Images  Daniel Day-Lewis plays President Abraham Lincoln in Lincoln. 20th Century Fox; Culture Club/Getty Images  Don Cheadle plays Miles Davis in Miles Ahead. Brian Douglas, Ton Pouw—AP  Demetrius Shipp Jr. plays Tupac Shakur in All Eyez on Me. Summit Entertainment; Raymond Boyd—Getty Images _Read next:_ [_Remembering Steve Jobs, the Man Who Did Almost Everything Right_](http://time.com/3462259/steve-jobs-cover/?xid=time%5Freadnext "undefined") ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3533899/steve-jobs-christian-bale-sorkin/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3533899/steve-jobs-christian-bale-sorkin/"},"headline":"Aaron Sorkin Confirms Christian Bale Will Play Steve Jobs","datePublished":"2014-10-23T13:15:50.000Z","dateModified":"2026-05-11T04:45:38.093Z","description":"\"We needed the best actor on the board in a certain age range and that’s Chris Bale.\"","url":"https://time.com/3533899/steve-jobs-christian-bale-sorkin/","keywords":["celebrities","Tech","Apple","Hollywood","Steve Jobs","aaron sorkin","Batman","Christian Bale"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt3f749674620182c4/698762628e0601d4b0457df6/christian-bale.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Noah Rayman","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/noah-rayman/"}],"articleSection":"Entertainment","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt3f749674620182c4/698762628e0601d4b0457df6/christian-bale.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"86th Annual Academy Awards - Arrivals","caption":"Christian Bale attends the 86th Oscars on March 2, 2014 in Hollywood.","creditText":"Jeff Vespa—WireImage/Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/entertainment/","name":"Entertainment"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/celebrities/","name":"celebrities"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3533899/steve-jobs-christian-bale-sorkin/","name":"Aaron Sorkin Confirms Christian Bale Will Play Steve Jobs"}}]}] ```