News - George Clooney to play Steve Jobs? No way

George Clooney seems like a delightful man.

When he isn't seen with beautiful ladies half his age, he's seen with Brad Pitt. He has a house on Lake Como in Italy, the home of louche sophistication. He is politically engaged, but never, it seems, romantically.

So how on earth might anyone think that His Suaveness could possibly play Steve Jobs?

This almost rhetorical question tortures me this morning because of a report in the highly authoritative Now magazine that Clooney is being considered for the lead in a new Steve jobs biopic.

Yes, Jobs was a notoriously sophisticated human being. But he was also, as Walter Isaacson's fine biography details, splendidly mean, harsh, rude, cutting, biting and just plain nasty.

Somehow, it's hard to imagine Clooney, who enjoys tilting his head 30 degrees to one side in order to make a serious point, ranting and raving to his employees about a failed detail of MobileMe's failure: "Why the f*** doesn't it do that?"

Moreover, Hollywood's makeup artists are good, but are they that good? Would they have the eyes and wherewithal to make us believe that Clooney is Jobs?

I have doubts. So do the people who, um, created this report. For they offer that Noah Wyle, he who once played Jobs in a TV movie and at the 1999 Macworld, is also up for the role.

George Clooney as Steve Jobs. He'd surely be better playing Eric Schmidt. (That's a joke.)