Aaron Sorkin
Aaron Sorkin
Aaron Benjamin Sorkin is an American screenwriter, producer, and playwright. His works include the Broadway plays A Few Good Men and The Farnsworth Invention; the television series Sports Night, The West Wing, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, and The Newsroom; and the films A Few Good Men, The American President, Charlie Wilson's War, The Social Network, Moneyball, and Steve Jobs...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionScreenwriter
Date of Birth9 June 1961
CityNew York City, NY
CountryUnited States of America
There's that process of writing it - then you come out of your room into the sunlight, and you now have to complete the circuit and make the connection finally with the audience.
Any time you get two people in a room who disagree about anything, the time of day, there is a scene to be written. That's what I look for.
I love writing, but hate starting. The page is awfully white and it says, 'You may have fooled some of the people some of the time but those days are over, Giftless. I'm not your agent and I'm not your mommy: I'm a white piece of paper. You wanna dance with me?' and I really, really don't. I'll go peaceable-like.
When you're writing a movie or a play and writing isn't going well, which is for me the normal condition - it's an exceptional day when suddenly I've got something and it's going well - you can call the studio or the producer or whoever is waiting for it and say, "I know I said I was going to have it in by the end of the summer.
We live in a world that has walls and those walls need to be guarded by men with guns.
The guy who wins the Oscar for Best Actor has a much higher bar to clear than the woman who wins best actress.
Trying to guess what the (mass) audience wants and then trying to satisfy that is usually a bad recipe for getting something good.
Mrs. Landingham, does the President have free time this morning? The President has nothing but free time, Toby. Right now he's in the residence eating Cheerios and enjoying Regis and Kathie Lee. Should I get him for you? Sarcasm's a disturbing thing coming from a woman of your age, Mrs. Landingham. What age would that be, Toby? Late twenties? Atta boy.
It's certainly easy for me to make a fictional character mad about something. I can get them angry about something that I'm relatively indifferent about, just because I'm not educated on it, if I go to someone who is educated about it and is passionate about it. I find a point of fiction and then give it to them.
Roxy Sorkin, your father just won the Academy Award. I'm going to have to insist on some respect from your guinea pig.
If you feel that strongly about something, you have an obligation to try and change my mind.
Decisions are made by those who show up.
There are television critics, movie critics, and theater critics too who I like and who I follow and I get genuinely bummed when they don't like something that I've written because I usually agree with them.
If you close your eyes you can imagine the hackers sitting in a room, combing through the documents to find the ones that will draw the most blood. And in a room next door are American journalists doing the same thing. As demented and criminal as it is, at least the hackers are doing it for a cause. The press is doing it for a nickel.