Okay, let's dive in. We're talking today about
a world filled with that super fast dialogue,
you know, high stakes idealism, characters who
are just incredibly smart, almost buzzing with
confidence. Yeah, absolutely. We're talking Aaron
Sorkin. Exactly. Aaron Sorkin. His style is so,
well, it even created its own visual trademark,
the walk and talk. That's right. Sorkin, you
think of him, you think blistering pace, right?
That constant search for the perfect line. And
his work, I mean, it covers film, television,
the stage, some of the biggest hits in each.
And our sources today, they really trace this
amazing journey. It's complex, sometimes a bit
contradictory, showing how this guy, a struggling
actor in New York, becomes this huge award -winning
filmmaker. Academy Awards, BAFTAs, Emmys. Right,
and often capturing something about the national
mood or, you know, trying to shape it. here is
to go deeper than just listing his credits. We
really want to map out this career, look for
those patterns in his work where that really
intense style came from. The collaborations he
had, those dynamics. Yeah, and crucially, the
personal stuff too. The battles that kind of
shaped everything over decades was really driving
him. And that's what the source material really
gets into, that internal engine. We've got some
really interesting points coming up. They show
how things like fate and maybe even deep self
-doubt played a part in his success. We're going
to unpack that exact moment he realized writing
gave him this phenomenal confidence, he called
it, a feeling he apparently didn't have anywhere
else in his life. Wow. And how just one phone
call, seemingly ordinary, about a hazing incident
sparked a few good men, his huge Broadway breakthrough.
Right. And we'll also look at what it was really
like, you know, being in that long partnership
where one guy just writes and the other handles
the whole visual side of things. Fascinating.
OK, so let's start at the beginning. Aaron Sorkin's
Roots. Born Aaron Benjamin Sorkin, Manhattan
1961. but raised mostly in Scarsdale, New York.
Pretty affluent place, right? Yeah, Scarsdale.
And the family background is really key, I think,
especially when you look at his later stuff,
like the West Wing. He grew up in a Jewish family,
big emphasis on law, civic duty, that sort of
thing. His mom was a teacher. Right, a school
teacher. But his dad was a copyright lawyer and
a WWII vet who went to college on the GI Bill.
Plus, both his older siblings also became lawyers.
So there was this, you know, expectation. of
intellectual achievement contributing. And there's
this great little nugget about his grandfather.
Oh, yeah. His paternal grandfather was one of
the founders of the ILGWU, the International
Ladies Garment Workers Union. Wow. OK, so it's
not just law. It's institution building, labor
rights, social justice. Exactly. That kind of
striving idealism seems baked in. You can almost
draw a line from that to characters like President
Bartlett or Will McAvoy later on. Totally. It's
this appreciation for the system, legal, political
unions, whatever, and this belief that ideally
they should work perfectly. But Sorkin himself,
he wasn't aiming for law at first. Or even writing.
Acting was his thing initially. Right. He was
really into the drama club in high school, graduated
at 79, then went off to Syracuse University aiming
for a BFA in musical theater. Got it in 83. But
it wasn't all smooth sailing there, was it? There
was that setback early on. Yeah. His freshman
year, he failed some core requirement class,
which sounds minor, but it apparently blocked
him from getting on stage right away, which was
like his whole world then. That must have been
tough. Yeah, a real knock. But it led to some
important advice. He talked about his theater
teacher, Arthur Storch, telling him, dare to
fail dare to fail which wasn't just about accepting
failure but more like encouraging big swings
you know taking risks for something important
sorkin said he's kind of followed that ever since
tackling these huge ambitious topics so after
syracuse he moves to new york city And it hits
that classic struggling actor phase in the 80s.
And it sounds like it was genuinely a struggle.
Oh, yeah. The sources paint a picture of real
desperation. He was doing all sorts of odd jobs
just to get by, driving a limo. Singing telegrams.
Really? Singing telegrams, handing out flyers
for, like, a hunting and fishing show. And, maybe
the most important one, bartending at the Palace
Theater on Broadway. And it's there, amidst all
that, that he starts writing. Almost by accident.
Pretty much. He was house -sitting for a friend,
found this computer with the typewriter function,
and he just started writing. And he described
it as the first time he ever felt this phenomenal
confidence, this kind of joy he'd never known.
That's such a key insight, isn't it, that feeling?
He connects it directly to feeling like a screw
-up in actual conversation, his social anxiety.
Exactly. Writing wasn't just a job for him. It
was like a psychological tool. He said he writes
to enter the world. On the page, he could control
it all. Make the dialogue perfect, witty, fast,
smart. It's like he's compensating for how he
felt in real -time interactions, creating these
hyper -articulate characters. That drive for
verbal perfection defines everything. And it
started translating into actual plays pretty
quickly. His first one, Removing All Doubt, was
put on Back of Syracuse in 84. Then Hidden in
This Picture, off -Broadway in 88. That got him
an agent. A crucial step. But then came the really
big one, a few good men. And the origin story
is wild. It wasn't some long research project.
Nope. Just a quick phone call, maybe 10 minutes,
with his sister Deborah. She was a lawyer in
the Navy JAG Corps. Oh, okay. And she just mentioned
she was off to Guantanamo Bay to defend some
Marines in a hazing case. An order came down
from a superior, apparently. And that becomes
a few good men. That's the spark. And the legend
part is he supposedly wrote a lot of the initial
ideas, the dialogue, on cocktail napkins while
he was bartending at the palace. Seriously, cocktail
napkins. That fits the Sorkin image perfectly,
doesn't it? That intense, high -pressure creation.
He'd transcribe them later. But what's amazing
is his confidence. He sold the film rights for
A Few Good Men to producer David Brown. Before
the play even opened. Before it even hit Broadway.
For apparently well into six figures. That's
incredible belief in your own stuff before anyone
else has really validated it. And the play was
a hit when it opened in 89. Ran for almost 500
performances. Yep. And that film rights sale.
Total game changer. Especially when the movie
came out in 92. Directed by Rob Reiner, mentored
by the great William Goldman. Tom Cruise, Jack
Nicholson. Huge. Massive. Made almost $250 million
worldwide. Suddenly, Sorkin wasn't the struggling
playwright anymore. He was a major Hollywood
screenwriter. Wow. So that movie really kicked
off the next phase, the Castle Rock Entertainment
years, early to mid -90s, working under contract.
Right. And this was like his professional film
school, really. Totally. He got tighter with
Rob Reiner, got mentored by William Goldman.
I mean, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. The
sources say when he was adapting A Few Good Men,
he was literally learning screenplay format from
a book in his apartment. Learning on the job.
He also co -wrote the thriller Malice Around
Men with Scott Frank, showing some range. But
the really big one from that period was The American
President in 95, another Reiner Goldman connection.
And the story behind that script says a lot,
doesn't it? about his writing process, maybe
his struggle with editing. It started as this
enormous 385 -page draft. Yeah, way too long
for a movie. He had to cut it down massively
to a standard shooting script. That tendency
towards, you know, lots and lots of dialogue,
complex plots, that would definitely show up
later in his TV work. Absolutely. But the success
was undeniable. A few good men, malice. the american
president together they made something like 400
million dollars globally that's a phenomenal
run especially for someone who started the decade
writing on napkins behind a bar he also did some
script doctoring in the late 90s right uncredited
work yeah that's important script doctors often
get called in specifically for dialogue pacing
character stuff perfect for sorkin exactly he
apparently punched up dialogue for sean connery
and nick cage in the rock rewrote some of Will
Smith's scenes in Enemy of the State. So all
this film work, plus the deep dive into White
House stuff for The American President, that
really paved the way for TV, didn't it? Absolutely.
Which brings us to Sports Night. Ah, Sports Night.
Love that show. And the origin is classic Sorkin
writing. Watching ESPN SportsCenter on repeat
while writing The American President. Yep, at
the Four Seasons. Couldn't crack it as a movie,
so he pitched it as a TV comedy to ABC. Debuted
in 98. But right away, there was that clash,
wasn't there? Him versus the network over the
laugh track. Oh, yeah. He fought them hard on
the laugh track and the live studio audience.
He said something like, you know, sometimes you
need that cymbal crash, but other times it just
pulls you out, ruins the drama he was mixing
in. And the critics kind of agreed. ABC did eventually
phase it out, mostly. It did. But even though
critics loved it, industry people loved it, the
ratings just weren't there. Cancel after two
seasons. A tough lesson, maybe. That his style
didn't automatically click in a half -hour format
for a mass audience. Perhaps. But just as Sports
Night was wrapping up, his biggest hit ever was
getting started. The West Wing. Which came out
of leftover ideas from the American president
research. Basically, yeah. He pitched producer
John Wells back in 97 a whole show about the
White House senior staff. And the timing with
the Clinton -Lilinski scandal actually delayed
it? NBC was nervous. Yeah, NBC held off. They
were worried, you know, that people wouldn't
buy into this idealistic White House show while
the real one was in turmoil. But maybe that delay
helped. Let it build some buzz. Could be. It
definitely gave them time to refine it. When
it finally debuted in Fall 99, it was huge. Instantly.
Won a record nine Emmys its first season. Changed
political TV drama completely. Speaking of Emmys.
Yeah. That period also had... that big controversy,
right? The writing credit dispute for the episode
in Excelsis Dio, Sorkin versus Rick Cleveland.
Right. That blew up very publicly on some web
forum, caused a real stir. Cleveland's story
was based on his own father, a homeless Korean
war vet. And Sorkin's take was? Sorkin basically
said he gave writers story by credits, sometimes
as like a favor, a gratuity to help their careers.
And then he claimed he'd thrown out Cleveland's
script entirely and wrote it himself from page
one. Total control. That's a bold claim. Yeah.
But then he later apologized. He did apologize
later, which, you know, maybe suggests the pressure
he was under. Well, think about it. He was writing
basically every single episode of The West Wing
for the first four seasons. That's 87 scripts.
That's insane output. Totally insane. He admitted
they were never on time or on budget during that
period. The pressure to maintain that singular
vision, that speed, it must have been immense
and probably led to tensions with the writing
staff who felt, you know, overlooked. And eventually
that pressure cooker situation led to him and
Thomas Schlamm leaving the show in 2003. Internal
conflicts was the official line. Right. And Sorkin
never watched it again after he left. He had
that famous quote, didn't he? Comparing it to...
Watching somebody make out with my girlfriend?
Yeah. Perfectly sums up how he felt he didn't
just write those characters, he owned them. Let's
pause on Shlam for a second. Because their collaboration
was key to the show's look, right? The invention
of the walk and talk. Absolutely essential. It
was Schlam's creation. He directed, was exec
producer on Sports Night West Wing Studio 60.
The walk and talk isn't just people walking while
talking. It's these long, single tracking shots.
Characters moving constantly through the set,
talking fast, entering, exiting. No cuts. So
Schlam basically did that to handle Sorkin's
dialogue. To stop it feeling static. Pretty much.
Sorkin's scripts were so dense they could easily
feel like stage plays on screen. Shalem said
the walk and talk made sure the audience witnessed
every journey, turning policy debates into something
visually dynamic, urgent, like ballet with briefcases.
Huh. Yeah. OK, so after West Wing, their next
big thing was Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip,
back to TV, 2006 -07, about a sketch comedy show
like SNL. And Sorkin admitted it had autobiographical
elements, which maybe isn't surprising given
the focus on writers, pressure, network politics.
The pilot did really well. Ratings wise, didn't
it? But then it dropped off fast. Yeah. Big initial
numbers, then a steep decline. And Sorkin got
really defensive about the media coverage, attacking
the press for focusing on the ratings, using
blogs and unemployed comedy writers as sources,
he called them. Shows that sensitivity again,
but competence and criticism. It only lasted
one season. Just one. After that, he actually
pivoted back to the stage for a bit with the
Farnsworth invention, 2007 -08. Which started
as a movie script. Yeah, a spec script about
Philo Farnsworth, the guy who invented TV and
his big patent fight with David Sarnoff at RCA.
And he workshopped it as a play. He did. It was
initially commissioned by the Abbey Theatre in
Dublin. That fell through. But then it went through
this page -to -stage program at La Jolla Playhouse.
Let him test it, tweak it based on audience reactions.
Smart way to tighten up complex historical stuff.
Okay, so that brings us into the next big phase,
really. Mastering the biopic, cementing that
film legacy, roughly 2007 to 2015. Right. He
jumped back into features with Charlie Wilson's
war in 2007, adapting that nonfiction book about
the congressman funding the secret war in Afghanistan.
Got a Golden Globe nomination for that. Seems
like a bridge maybe between the idealism of West
Wing and the trickier morality you need in biopics.
Good point. And then came the one that really
brought home the gold, The Social Network in
2010. Based on The Accidental Billionaires. The
Facebook story. Yeah, let's not just list it.
This film was huge for him. Academy Award, BAFTA,
Golden Globe for Best Adapted Screenplay. Why
that script? Why was Sorkin, Mr. Fast Talker,
the guy to write about Mark Zuckerberg, someone
known for being awkward, not super verbal? That's
the genius of it, I think. Sorkin took all the
intellectual property fights, the emotional betrayal,
the tech jargon, and framed it within these two
depositions, so he turned it into verbal combat.
The courtroom, or deposition room, is his natural
habitat. Ah. The whole movie runs on the energy
of those arguments, the speed, the wit. It's
not about physical action. It's about dialogue
as a weapon, showing power, intellect, resentment.
Makes sense. And then right after that, another
big adaptation, Moneyball in 2011, co -written.
Totally different challenge. How do you make
baseball stats exciting? Moneyball was about
Billy Bean using data analysis in baseball. Sorkin
got Oscar, BAFTA, Golden Globe Noms for it again.
Rolling Stone called the script Dynamite. He
managed to turn sabermetrics into this, like,
emotional struggle against the old guard. The
dialogue makes the math feel rebellious, you
know? Yeah, yeah. Then he went back to TV again
with The Newsroom on HBO, 2012 to 2014, his fourth
big series, this time... cable news. And his
research was deep. He reportedly spent time shadowing
crews at MSNBC, talking to people at CNN, Fox
News. He really wanted to nail the competence,
the mechanics of the newsroom. And his goal was
kind of explicitly anti -cynical, wasn't it?
Using real news events from the recent past.
Exactly. He wanted to show these highly competent
people trying to do good journalism despite all
the pressures, commercial, political, corporate.
Which ties back to that core philosophy you mentioned.
Somebody wants something and something's in the
way. Here, it's good journalism versus, well,
everything else. Right. That drive for competence
against obstacles defines it all. Lawsuits, policy,
elections, news. The last big film in this period
was Steve Jobs in 2015, based on the Isaacson
biography. Huge figure, huge challenge. Massive.
Sorkin even hesitated, saying it was like writing
about the Beatles because everyone felt they
knew Jobs. His solution was really structural.
How so? He structured it around just three specific
moments backstage right before three major product
launches. High pressure, real -time feel. Again,
channeling all the complexity and emotion purely
through intense dialogue in confined spaces.
And he won another Golden Globe for that screenplay.
Yeah. but got snubbed for the Oscar nom, which
people thought was weird. Yeah, that was seen
as a pretty big oversight at the time. So the
next logical step, maybe, for someone so focused
on vision directing. Exactly. The next phase
is Sorkin taking the reins himself, stepping
behind the camera, really wanting that complete
control, writing and directing. It started with
Molly's Game in 2017, adapting Molly Bloom's
memoir about her poker empire. Jessica Chastain,
Idris Elba. His official debut as director, and
even with the new job, he still got his third
Oscar nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay,
showed he could handle both sides. Then he tackled
something even bigger, the trial of the Chicago
7 in 2020, which had been kicking around for
ages, right? Spielberg offered it to him way
back. Yeah, back in 2006. So it had over a decade
to kind of percolate. He ended up writing and
directing it. Perfect Sorkin territory, courtroom
drama, major political moment. Lots of clashing
ideologies expressed through rapid fire. Got
it. High stakes arguments. And it worked. Won
the Golden Globe for screenplay. Got nominated
for Best Director, too. He used that same writer
director approach for being the Ricardos next
in 2021. Focusing on Lucille Ball and Desi on
Us, that intense marriage and creative partnership,
especially during one crazy week of I Love Lucy.
But the reception for that one was more mixed,
wasn't it? Yeah, the sources indicate that. People
praised the dialogue, naturally, but some critics
felt it lacked spark or insight. Maybe suggesting
his very specific style doesn't always capture
the nuances of real, beloved historical figures
perfectly. Can feel a bit... Sorkinized. Interesting.
He also went back to the stage around this time.
Adapted to Kill a Mockingbird for Broadway in
2018. Huge success. Got nine Tony nominations.
Right. And then more recently, 2023, he rewrote
the book for the revival of Camelot. Taking on
a classic musical like that shows he's still
interested in structure, in fixing narratives,
not just creating new ones. And he's not slowing
down. Working on a film about Al Schwimmer, who
founded the Israeli Air Force. And the big news
for film fans. The Social Network sequel? Yes.
The Social Reckoning. Based on the Facebook Files
documents. Set for 2026. He'd hinted at it, blamed
Facebook for January 6th. Sounds like he's ready
to tackle tech's impact again. Yeah, seems like
he's still focused on competence versus failure
within these massive systems, political and technological.
Okay, so let's dig into the style itself. The
Sorkin signature. What are the absolute key elements?
Well, obviously, the trademark fast dialogue,
those long, smart monologues, the back and forth
banter, often full of obscure pop culture references,
delivered super quick. It creates this feeling
of like thrilling intelligence. And William Goldman,
his mentor, had that great observation, right?
That usually you avoid long speeches in movies,
but Sorkin can do it because the speeches are
the action. They're not just talk. Exactly. But
that style definitely has its critics. Some say
the scripts are overwrought. Too complicated,
trying too hard. And that old issue of writing
credit keeps popping up. Even compared to Hollywood
standards, some ex -writers called him exceptionally
ungenerous. Yeah, he maintains his scripts aren't
written by committee, but it points to that real
sense of ownership he has over the words. It
even became a meme, didn't it? The Sorkinisms
videos. Huh, yeah. Fans compiling all the times
he reused certain lines or phrases or arguments
across different projects. He acknowledged them,
which is something. But it does highlight, you
know, certain patterns in his writing. But maybe
the most persistent criticism is about his female
characters, which feels odd for someone who champions
idealism and competence. What did the sources
say about that? Is it a blind spot? It's a frequent
critique. Commentators point out his female characters
are often secondary, there to support the men,
or sometimes depicted as, well, maybe less competent,
meeting rescuing. There are exceptions, of course,
but the overall pattern suggests his world of
high -stakes rational argument doesn't always
make space for equally complex female leads.
They often end up as the moral compass or the
love interest, not the main driver. Interesting.
Now we have to talk about the personal side,
too. The stuff that maybe fueled the work or
existed alongside it, specifically his struggles
with addiction. It's that core tension again.
Idealistic writer, chaotic personal life. Yeah,
he started using marijuana and cocaine back in
87. Said cocaine helped with nervous tension.
He went to rehab in 95. Yes, Hazelden in Minnesota.
Apparently his future wife, Julia Bingham, encouraged
him to go. But even after getting some recognition
for being clean, he had that. Major, very public
relapse in 2001. And this was while writing The
West Wing, the show about moral competence. Exactly.
April 2001, arrested at Burbank Airport, possession
of mushrooms, marijuana, crack cocaine, a crack
pipe. The contrast is just stark, isn't it? Writing
peak idealism while dealing with that level of
addiction, it kind of defines that incredibly
productive yet turbulent period. He got court
ordered into a drug program, but he did get clean
later. yeah in a 2012 speech at syracuse he announced
he'd been clean for 11 years at that point But
his marriage to Julia Bingham ended in 2005,
and reports cited his workaholism and drug use
as factors. There was clearly a personal cost
to that relentless output. Politically, he's
always been pretty clear, right? A consistent
supporter, yeah. Makes significant campaign donations.
But he makes a distinction himself. He doesn't
call himself an activist, says that takes more
than writing a check. He sees his job as asking
questions, exploring ideas, not necessarily leading
a movement. And more recently, he had that health
scare. Yeah. Yeah. A stroke in November 2022.
Hypertension. He called it a loud wake up call.
Did it change things for him? Big time. Forced
him to quit chain smoking, which you imagine
fueled some of those crazy writing jags, changes
diet, start exercising. Another sign of the physical
toll that intensity took. And finally. Just recently,
his politics and professional life collided very
publicly. Right. In 2023, during the Gaza conflict,
he very publicly dropped his agent at CAA because
someone high up there made a post critical of
Israel. At the same time, Sorkin was signing
letters calling for Israeli hostages to be released.
It shows those strong convictions he writes about.
They directly influence his real world actions,
too. OK, so wrapping this all up, we followed
Aaron Sorkin from, you know, bartending and discovering
writing on a borrowed typewriter to being this
absolute giant of modern drama. Yeah, winning
the biggest awards, Oscar, Emmys, Tonys, potentially
implied by nominations, defining the whole genre
of modern political drama, demanding that complete
creative control. His legacy really is that massive
output, that control, whether it's the walk and
talk with Schlamm or directing his own complex
biopics like Steve Jobs or Chicago 7. He takes
really dense, smart material policy, tech, ethics,
and makes it feel urgent and emotional. through
that signature dialogue. Absolutely. The sources
really paint his career as this constant search
for competence, for idealism, often happening
while he's navigating personal chaos or professional
friction. His scripts work best when his hyper
-smart characters want something badly, face
huge obstacles, but believe the system can work
if the right competent people are in charge.
Which leads us to our final thought for you,
the listener. We know Sorkin's view of drama.
Somebody wants something, and something or someone
is standing in the way. So if his characters
are always the smartest, most articulate people
in the room, what really stands in their way
most often across all his work? Is it maybe self
-doubt, echoing his own early feelings? Is it
the moral compromises they have to make? Or is
it just the messy reality of the institutions,
the politics, the media, the courts, that they're
trying so hard to perfect? Something to think
about.