By Barb Oates
TNT will pay tribute to Steve Jobs, who died yesterday, by re-airing their 1999 Emmy-nominated film Pirates of Silicon Valley at 8pmET and 10pmET tonight. Below are extracts from our original review that ran in our June 1999 issue and comments from Noah Wyle on playing Jobs in the film.
Wyle originally turned down the role of Steve Jobs saying: “I wanted to focus on ER. It’s a pivotal year for the show and I didn’t want to take on anything in addition to the part of Dr. Carter. But then Martyn Burke sent me the PBS documentary Triumph of the Nerds, cued to Steve Jobs. I watched for 10 seconds and knew I’d kick myself for the rest of my life if I didn’t play this part.”
Wyle described Jobs as a perfectionist. “He’s one of those rare breed of men who are destined for greater things and won’t rest until they get there. Either you subscribe to Jobs’ worth ethics and his vision, or you don’t have a place in his environment.
“Jobs considered himself a hippie, which was evident in his managerial style. He took counterculture ethics of the late ’60s and applied them to mainstream business. Jobs used to say that it’s more fun to be a pirate than to join the Navy. His philosophy was that it’s OK to steal, but only if you use the wealth for greater purposes.”
Wyle prepared for his role by watching lots of video clips and doing a lot of reading. “I watched video footage and read several terrific books on Jobs, like The Journey is the Reward and Insanely Great. The most helpful resources were magazine articles of the time. Books are written with the benefit of hindsight, but these articles were written in the flavor of the moment.”
Pirates of Silicon Valley is a true American tale of ambition, lust and greed. The cast does a superb job of capturing the complex personalities of their characters. Anthony Michael Hall (The Breakfast Club, Sixteen Candles) stars as Microsoft billionaire Bill Gates. Emmy® and Golden Globe nominee Noah Wyle (ER, Falling Skies) stars as Apple Computers’ founder Steve Jobs. Joey Slotnick (Blast from the Past, Hollow Man) stars as Steve Wozniak, Jobs’ partner and cofounder of Apple.
Wyle, who during filming the movie in 1999, worked seven days a week between this film and his ER role. He admitted that he got quite an education on computers while researching for the film. He said he hasn’t stopped using his computer since shooting was completed. His choice of equipment — no surprise — was a G-3 PowerBook. For computer novices, that’s a product of Apple/Steve Jobs.
“I had an Apple before we did the movie, but in doing research about Apple, everything that Steve Jobs put into that computer is exactly why I love it,” Wyle said. “You don’t fall in love with many products. You don’t love your coffee maker, but you love your computer. There’s something about the aesthetic that went into the design both internally and externally. The fact that [Jobs] had all the original programmers of the Macintosh sign the inside of the hard plastic case, even though nobody was ever going to see that except for a technician. He considered that to be a work of art. For some reason, I just believe that that transcends and people feel that about the product.”
And that Steve Jobs did to a perfection. R.I.P. Steve Jobs!
Never saw this movie when it originally aired, great story.