Happy 60th Birthday, Bill Gates: Steve Jobs Got Michael Fassbender, but Here Are 5 Hotties Who Could Play the Microsoft Billionaire

PCs are still cool and when Steven Spielberg inevitably makes a movie about the more low-key computing hero, we have some suggestions

By Natalie Finn Oct 28, 2015 12:00 PMTags
Bill GatesAlberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images

No need to cry for Bill Gates

The Microsoft co-founder, who celebrates his 60th birthday today, is the richest man in the world after all, Forbes most recently estimating his net worth to be $79.6 billion. And he and wife Melinda Gates, through their eponymous foundation, are spending most of their time these days eradicating disease and otherwise saving the world, so he presumably sleeps pretty soundly at night, too.

But though he's a stud among philanthropists, Gates seems to keep getting the shaft in the pop-culture department, and not just because of that whole Zune thing.

Despite the fact that he likely played a role in your life first and you're probably still involved in some capacity to this day, Gates is hardly the first bespectacled visionary to come to mind when the conversation turns to the most revered gadgets on the planet and the Zeus-like figures who created them.

Bob Riha Jr/WireImage, Getty Images

Instead, the late Steve Jobs remains the enigmatic onion everyone's trying to peel. He's been the subject of three controversial films (including the 2015 documentary Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine) in the past three years and has been played by heartthrobs Michael Fassbender, Ashton Kutcher and, in the 1999 TV movie Pirates of Silicon Valley, ER-era Noah Wyle.

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Gates, meanwhile, was played by Anthony Michael Hall (in his pre-Dead Zone awkward phase, we mean) in Pirates and got killed off in South Park: Bigger, Longer, Uncut.

The kids just aren't that into him, even though plenty of paper-thin Macs are stuffed with Microsoft software.

But don't worry, Bill Gates, just because you're more button-down than turtleneck doesn't mean you don't totally deserve your own movie with one of the most adorable actors in the biz playing you. Danny Boyle took on the Jobs drama, but we picture none other than Steven Spielberg one day taking on the Gates epic, the director of Lincoln being the perfect choice to frame the inspiring, productive and loooong story of the Harvard dropout turned Windows peddler turned fighter of polio, malaria, global warming and more.

And here are the actors we think would do the role justice:

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1. Eddie Redmayne: Surely this pick needs no explanation, but let's just go over the credentials for a sec: Oscar winner who's proved he can disappear into the role of a real-life genius. All-around likable but can pull off being moody when need be. Can bring his own glasses.

Elisabetta A. Villa/Getty Images

2. Tom Hiddleston: We can't help it that adorable Brits remind us of Bill Gates. The gingery Avengers star has talent to spare, can be both humorous and menacing (we're assuming Gates didn't get where he is without being a little menacing) and would bring all sorts of geek cred with him to the role. And look at how well he wears a button-down.

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3. Damian Lewis: May we point to exhibit C of the British-cutie argument. As seen on the late, great, too-short series Life, the Golden Globe winner can do quirky-brainy and any Homeland fan can tell you that he'll nail those angsty scenes in which he and Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen are wondering why—why?!—they bothered with Windows 95.

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4. Joshua Malina: We thought the Scandal star actually was Bill Gates for many years and we always wondered how he had all that time to be on The West Wing.

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5. Michael Fassbender: Why not? He doesn't look like Steve Jobs, either. A change of shirt, a different part of the hair, replace a few mentions of "Macintosh" with "IBM" and "iOS" with "Windows" and the transformation is complete. Excuse us while we right-click on a synonym for chameleon.

A very happy 60th birthday to Bill Gates, who may be the less glamorous game-changer but is still a hero of the computing world. May he get the biopic, complete with heartthrob star, he deserves.

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