Justin Long created quite a stir last week among nerds when he appeared on the Jimmy Kimmel show with a jailbroken iPhone. That in and of itself is nothing shocking. Jailbreaking your iPhone is legal nowadays but Long was the Mac guy for nearly four years in Apple’s unforgettable “I’m a Mac, I’m a PC” ad campaign. Our compatriots over at TIME Magazine have a Q&A with Justin Long in this week’s issue to talk about his upcoming film Going The Distance and they shared a bit of it with us ahead of print.
(More: Apple Plans To Remotely Kill Your iPhone If It’s Jailbroken)
Time: In real life, do you feel obliged to let Jon Hodgman win arguments after four years of constant ridicule?
Long: Maybe there is a little guilt for my television arrogance. In fact, I feel the opposite. I revere John Hodgman. He’s far smarter and funnier than I could ever hope to be. That’s why the point of those commercials were a little lost on me. I’m actually jealous of things he got to do. I preferred the role of the PC Guy because he got to do all the fun underdog stuff. The big choice I had to make was when do I take my hands out of my pockets and how do I gesture or roll my eyes.
Time: Are there outtakes where he wins?
Long: They have them. I keep trying to get my hands on them. We would shoot four to six a day. So we would do a lot at a time. So most of them we didn’t air. They probably aired about 15 percent of them. There were tons we shot. I remember we shot one with Zach Galifianakis where he played a drunk Santa Claus. And we did one with Paul F. Tompkins that was similar. We’ve had really funny and great people on them. But I hope they compile the best ones they didn’t use. And I hope they use outtakes. Because when you’re standing in front of a white abyss like that for 12 hours at a time you start getting a little punchy. There are some bizarre and funny outtakes I’d love to see.
Time: So is it well and truly off?
Long: I don’t know, they don’t really tell me much. I personally haven’t heard anything. I could get a call next week.
Time: I see you had a jailbroken iPhone 4 on Jimmy Kimmel.
Long: I know, someone said they were upset that I had hacked into the phone. I didn’t do it. I would never know how to. I wish I could. One of the tech guys there did it because you need this program called Cydia to project it onto a bigger screen. So I want to set the record straight. On behalf of the geeks, I’m not smart enough to do it. I would if I could.
Time: Do you take stuff like the iPhone backlash personally?
Long: Not at all. I don’t know enough about computers, they are not an integral part of my life for me to invest in any argument about them.
–Q&A conducted by Bryan Alexander for TIME
