Last year, Michael Fassbender and Natalie Portman kept signing on to the same projects. It was weird because… I don’t know? They just don’t seem like they would have a lot of professional or on-screen chemistry. Which is why it didn’t surprise me that they didn’t end up doing all of those projects together. They did a Terrence Malick film together, then Portman was considered for Fassy’s Macbeth film, but Marion Cotillard was later cast as Lady Macbeth. Fassy was also supposed to be in Portman’s Jane Got a Gun, but that whole thing ended up being a giant clusterwhoops, with a steady stream of people leaving the project in a hurry.

Anyway, Portman is now in “talks” to star with Fassy on another project: the very chaotic Steve Jobs bio-pic written by Aaron Sorkin. As I said when Fassy first approached the project, he doesn’t seem like a particularly good casting choice. There was even some behind-the-scenes drama in the past week, when Sony dumped the project and Universal picked it up, with Fassbender attached. And now Portman is “in talks” to play a “major role.” Hm.

Natalie Portman is in talks to join Universal’s Steve Jobs biopic. Character details were not revealed, but it is expected to be a major role. Should a deal get done, the Oscar winner’s casting would mark another positive reversal of fortune for the Danny Boyle-helmed project. Deadline revealed last week that it had been put in turnaround by Sony Pictures, to the shock of many in the industry. Universal picked it up Monday.

Michael Fassbender is being courted to play the Apple genius in the Aaron Sorkin-scripted film, adapted from Walter Isaacson’s best-selling biography Steve Jobs. The film is produced by Scott Rudin, Christian Colson, Mark Gordon and Guymon Casady.

Portman, repped stateside by CAA, has been particularly busy of late. The actress-turned-filmmaker is in post on her feature directorial debut A Tale Of Love And Darkness, an adaptation of celebrated Israeli writer Amos Oz’s memoir, in which she also stars. She is a producer on Burr Steers’ Jane Austen/undead mash-up Pride And Prejudice And Zombies and stars in Gavin O’Connor’s upcoming Jane Got A Gun and a pair of Terrence Malick pictures.

[From Deadline]

There’s some theory that Portman might play Jobs’ wife? But remember, this is an Aaron Sorkin script, so she would probably be playing either a coworker or some kind of foil, maybe even a journalist. The film is apparently set as three long scenes, each scene set backstage before Steve Jobs launched an iconic Apple product (like, the Mac, the iPod, the iPad, something like that). What do you think? Should Portman and Fassy make more films together?

Photos courtesy of Fame/Flynet.