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
As an audience member, I like the sound of something that's been written - I like it to sound written. And then, of course, you can't do it without the musicians who can play it.
The downside to series television is that the schedule is ferocious. It constantly feels like you have a midterm due that you haven't started yet.
Honestly, I don't try to guess at what most people want. I don't think I'd guess right, and I just think that that's not a good recipe for storytelling. I try to write what I like, what I think my friends would like.
Just to clarify the division of labor on the show, I write the show and Alan [Poul] does everything else.
I would love for people to think that I am as quick, clever, smart and heroic as the characters that I write, but those characters are characters.
The stuff that I write doesn't work very well as background music. You have to watch it from beginning to end and pay attention as if you were watching a play.
I think that if I couldn't write, I would be unemployable.
When I was a kid, I wanted to be an actor. I was acting in all the school plays. I went to school for acting. I was really sure that that's what I wanted to do.
I'm a playwright. All I care about is the play being good.
I think it's up to writers to write stuff that is compelling enough that people want to watch.
With a television series, there's a hard deadline, and so you have to write even when you're not writing well.
One of the biggest challenges in the past for me in working on the networks was that audiences have grown accustomed to television being something that keeps you company-background music, something that you have on while you're flipping through a magazine, cooking dinner, talking on the phone, putting the kids to bed.
Develop your own compass, and trust it. Take risks, dare to fail, remember the first person through the wall always gets hurt.
I don't believe there are two sides to every argument. I think the facts are the center. And watching the news abandon the facts in favor of 'fairness' is what's troubling to me.