Ashton Kutcher at Macworld: Steve Jobs was my 'hero'

Ashton Kutcher at Macworld: Steve Jobs was my ‘hero’

By Nardine Saad

Jan. 31, 2013 12 AM PT

Ashton Kutcher has been getting rave reviews from audiences for his role in a biopic about Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival last week, but the star doesn’t seem ready to let go of the famed tech whiz just yet.

Appearing at the Macworld trade show Thursday morning, Kutcher partook in some banter about his role model and said that he wanted to do justice in telling his story.

“If this story is going to get told, I want to get it told in a way that honors my hero,” Kutcher told the audience about reading the screenplay.

FULL COVERAGE: Sundance Film Festival 2013

The “jOBS” star tweeted a split-screen photo of himself and the Silicon Valley pioneer earlier this week with the caption, “Thank you Sundance for your support of Jobs.”

Kutcher, 34, is aged in the black-and-white photo and has that same look -- glasses, black turtleneck and gaze -- Jobs did. The resemblance is eerie!

The “Two and a Half Men” star took his role seriously for the film, even adopting Jobs fruitarian diet that led to the actor being hospitalized, the Daily Dish reported.

“I ended up in the hospital two days before we started shooting the movie,” Kutcher told the Associated Press. “I was like doubled over in pain, and my pancreas levels were completely out of whack, which was completely terrifying, considering everything.”

Jobs died in October 2011 from pancreatic cancer. The biopic co-stars “The Book of Mormon” actor Josh Gad as Jobs’ partner Steve Wozniak. Even Gad was taken aback by Kutcher’s similarities to Jobs.

“Ashton is going to blow a lot of people away. His performance was absolutely transformational,” Gad told Us Weekly last November. “If he looked any more like Steve Jobs, I think it would just confuse a lot of people in thinking Steve Jobs never passed away. It’s that uncanny.”

The film, which sold to Open Road Films prior to Sundance, depicts Kutcher as Jobs during key moments in his life from 1977 to 2000 and will hit theaters in April. See a clip of him in the film below.

“This was honestly one of the most terrifying things I’ve ever tried to do in my life. I admired this man so much,” Kutcher said at the festival premiere of the film. “I’ve never seen Abraham Lincoln walk into a room, but I’ve seen Steve Jobs walk into a room.”

Even Bill Gates is admitting that he had less celebrity than Jobs. Appearing on “The Colbert Report” on Wednesday night, Stephen Colbert asked him about his longtime rival.

“He was always cooler than me,” the Microsoft founder said. “He was brilliant. He had his own style; he had his own approach. And mine is I guess a little geekier than his was.” Watch the interview below. The Jobs segment is around the 5:40 mark.

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Follow Nardine on Twitter @NardineSaad and Google +. Follow Ministry of Gossip @LATcelebs.