Aaron Sorkin Goes Off Script

In my mind, I did the Coke and wrote a few good men, you know, the next day. I'm Lulu Garcia-Navarro and today I'm in Beverly Hills interviewing Aaron Sorkin, the walk-in talk. "Billion dollars here, billion dollars there, sooner or later it starts to add up to real money." The snappy dialogue. "I'm really going to let them loose in the white house where there's liquor and women." "We can hide the women, but the man deserves a drink." The soaring monologues. "We stood up for what was right." His work often dramatizes the institutions that shape American society, like the presidency in his hit TV show The West Wing, or Big Tech in the social network about Mark Zuckerberg and the founding of Facebook. "If you guys were the inventors of Facebook, you'd have invented Facebook." Now 16 years later, Sorkin's back with a follow-up to the social network. It's called The Social Reckon. "Facebook isn't the ref, that's the point, so that's the point, Charlie." He both wrote and directed the film, which focuses on real-life whistleblower Francis Hagen. So why revisit Facebook after all these years? Here's my conversation with writer and director Aaron Sorkin. But first, a quick message. If you're not a subscriber and you should be, we have some news for you. You can explore the times for free without paywalls during your first month in the New York Times app. Just download the app, and we hope you enjoy it now onto the interview. Aaron Sorkin, thank you so much for coming on the interview. It's great to have you. That's my pleasure. I want to start with a big question before we dig into your latest work. Andrew Breitbart, the founder of the Right Wing website, Breitbart News, would say often that politics is downstream from culture, right? And what he was saying essentially is that Hollywood is sometimes more influential. It has more sway over our politics than Washington does. You've written stories that use our politics institutions as a backdrop so many times. The West Wing, the American President, Charlie Wilson's War, the newsroom, the trial of the Chicago Seven, and some might add the social network and your new film, the social reckoning to that. And we're going to talk about that in a minute. How do you view your role in that equation? It's not a political agenda. I think before a movie can be anything else. Before it can be thought-provoking or relevant, it has to be good. It has to work as a movie. It has to work as something that you watch while you're reading popcorn. So that's what I'm thinking about while I'm writing. Beyond that, I write idealistically and romantically, and I find that these areas, government, the news, journalists, that's where the stories are. They're just stories there that really suit the way I like to write. Well, explain that though. Because in 2020, you told my colleague, David Marcazi, that you like writing heroes without capes because it makes us feel as though greatness is achievable. And again, you invoke these words romantic, idealistic. You've used these words a lot. And I guess not to be trite, but do you write to make the world a better place? No, let's be really clear. I write to, in some way, captivate you for the two hours that I've asked for your attention while you're in the theater. I take a lot of pride in the fact that there are people who tell me that they got into public service because they watch the West Wing, I really do. And in terms of heroes without capes, I'll, from time to time, you'll be watching the news, and someone will say something like, there's not going to be a West Wing moment here. Don't expect a West Wing moment. When we can't agree on the debt ceiling, the government's going to shut down. There's not going to be a West Wing moment. Meaning that there's not going to be a resolution by partisan, where people come together to do the better thing. Yes, meaning no one is going to step up and set the West Wing aside. Be a Frank Capra-esque character and that the stuff that I write when it's not money ball or Charlie Wilson's war, Steve Jobs. You know, I'm told a lot that it's an optimistic fantasy. And you just use those words romantic, you know? Yes, and it is. However, it does not require supernatural powers to do those things. That it's nice that we can kind of see what greatness looks like and aspire to that. Okay, I want to talk about how that view fits into your new movie, The Social Reckoning. It takes place from 2019 to 2021 and it follows a Facebook product manager named Francis Hagen, who became a whistleblower. Her story was the basis of the Facebook files, which was reported by Jeff Horowitz of The Wall Street Journal. In 2022, you told the Guardian, I very much doubt that anyone else is going to write a sequel to The Social Network. Famous last words. Why didn't you think it was possible then and what changed your mind? Okay, well, let me say first, I'm not really sure you can call this a sequel. You know, what this is is another movie about Facebook written by the same writer who wrote The Social Network and one of the characters from The Social Network is in this as well, but played by a different actor. Mark Zuckerberg? Yes. It's as if the character of Henry Hill showed up in Casino. That's what this is. To answer your question, there were two reasons why in 2022, I said that. One was, I had been, there had been a few people in my world asking me for a while. You should write something else about Facebook. There's another story here, after Cambridge Analytica, there were a number of things along the way where people thought I should revisit it and I just didn't want to be the writer of Jaws too. I was afraid of that, but also, mostly, I just couldn't find the story. I couldn't find the movie part of what they were talking about until I started learning about Francis Hagen and Jeff Harwitz and what it was they uncovered. You know, obviously, in preparation to this, I went back to watch The Social Network again, and it tells the story of the founding of Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg. And I was really shocked by how skeptical you were of social media. And this came out in 2010. This was the height of tech optimism when we were still sort of happily connecting with our high school friends and former sweethearts. What did you see that the rest of us didn't? Well, do you tell me what are you seeing in that movie where I was skeptical of social media? I think there's a sense in that that Mark Zuckerberg has created something that yes, allows us to connect, but really, why are we connecting and with whom and for what reason? And perhaps that's a modern reading of that. But at the time, I look back at interviews and you didn't talk about how you weren't sure this was such a great technology. What I remember is this very successful social network is being built by an extraordinarily anti-social guy. That this person who was uncomfortable kind of in the social structure of college, the way many of us are, invented his own social structure, that he couldn't be shut out of the way we shut out of the final clubs in the social network. And he'd be the mayor of that social structure. The social network was how the Facebook was invented. Social reckoning is about what Facebook has become, and in particular, the role that it has played and continues to play in the rise of extremism and divisiveness in this country. And we'll get to that, but one more question about the way you wrote that movie, which is that Facebook was born out of Zuckerberg's sort of desire for revenge. You've been asked before about your sort of responsibility to be fair to people when you're writing stories that involve actual characters in real life. And you've said you're making a painting and not a photograph. But, you know, looking back on that now, some of the details you changed are pretty big. That idea of this anti-social person creating the social network. I mean, he was dating his now White Priscilla Chan at the time. And so it wasn't exactly true, but it's become the sort of origin story that everyone understands about Facebook now. Whether Mark was dating Priscilla Chan at the time or not, I honestly don't know in all of the researcher name never. came up. But I think broadly speaking, your question is, what am I willing to fictionalize when I'm telling the story of a real person who's still living? Right. And because it's so important, because it's the way so many people understand things, what is fair? I would never defame someone. By the way, I could never defame someone. It's a really interesting area for me, because I have, especially lately, done a lot of nonfiction and in some cases about people who are still alive. The trial of the Chicago Seven, for example. Chicago Seven. Molly's game being the Ricardo Steve Jobs. Yeah, exactly. One critic once said, and they didn't mean it as an insult, and I didn't take it that way. They once said that when I write nonfiction, I am really just using the characters for parts. I used to just really, and they had a point. There's an idea that I'll get about a character's motivation, like Marx. I'll do my research. I'll learn everything that I can about the reality. I'll talk to as many people as I can, read as much as I can. But in the process of thinking about it, and then the process of writing it, it becomes the same as a fictional character for me. It becomes my character that I'm creating. It sounds like you're going to get to it in a moment. But the studio's legal department will make sure that I get on, I'm staying inside the lines. But it's this imaginary thing and it has my voice, and eventually it's going to be played by an actor and it's going to have that face. But I will tell you that in terms of Mark, in both cases, social network, social reckoning, or any antihero, which is what Mark is, not a villain. Describe the difference. For people who might not understand, in your mind, what an antihero and a villain is. An antihero has good intentions. They think they're doing good. Jack Nicholson's character and a few good men. That was the first thing that I wrote. The whole speech about how he thinks that what he's doing is protecting America. Have neither the time or the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom that I provide, and then quest into the manner in which I provide it. The penguin, the Joker, they just want a rule, Gotham City. Those are villains of the others are antiheroes. In the case of Mark, or again, any antihero, I, as the writer, I can't judge that character. I write that character as if they're making their case to God why they should get into heaven. You don't think Mark Zuckerberg is a villain? Are we talking about real Mark or my Mark? Tell me what the distinction. Okay. I don't want to pass a judgment on real Mark. I'm not here for that. The Mark in the social reckoning is an antihero, not a villain. I just want to add that the character and the person not only have me trying to defend them. Jeremy Strong, who blows the doors off the place, playing this part, was constantly defending Mark to me. Not just on the set, he'd write to me a late at night, and as soon as his last shot was over on his last day of shooting, as soon as I called, cut, checked the gate. Jeremy Strong marched up to me, and this was the first time I heard him use his own voice on the set, not Mark's voice. And his own voice said, "If I'd been playing Jeff, I'd have been defending Jeff." What is Mark Zuckerberg's case to God now? I mean, in that he's bringing people closer together. That's been his mission from the beginning. And I imagine that the advances that he's making with certain technology with AI and with the dumb glasses, that the imagines those are steps forward for all of us. Just to stay with Jeremy Strong's portrayal, Jesse Eisenberg turned down the role. And part of the reason he said he didn't want to do it is because he felt like he had been so identified with that role, and he was tired of people coming up to him and saying, "It's the only reason he said he didn't want to do it." He does not want to be conflated with this character anymore. He really doesn't like Mark Zuckerberg. He would talk about being in airports at the baggage claim, and young kids, 13, 14-year-old kids coming up to him, wanting him to sign a business card that said, "I'm CEO, bitch." Things like that, he doesn't like that kind of looks like the guy and just wouldn't do it. And he meant it, too, because he was offered every incentive that usually works with actors. So Jesse wasn't going to do it. Jeremy was the next call, and as it turned out, it was like replacing Joe DiMaggio with Mickey Mantle. In a recent interview, Strong said he reached out via email to Zuckerberg and Zuckerberg wrote back. Yeah, I read that. Did you know? No, and I had no idea. Did you know what they said to each other? Have you asked him? No, I read it as we taped this yesterday. That's interesting. He didn't tell you. Why do you think he didn't tell you? I don't know. I'm not shocked that he didn't. Jeremy does a lot of his own work. He does a tremendous amount of work before he shows up on your set. I meant it when he said, he did not speak in his own voice or walk the way Jeremy walks. He was completely immersed. That's Jeremy's process. I had told all the other actors in his scenes. I know, guys, he's not going to be hanging out with you at craft service. He's not going to be up and up with you between takes. He's probably not going to speak to you at all. He's going to treat you the way he imagines Mark treats the people around him. He's just going to be living with this for I think it was eight or nine days of shooting they had. That's what happened. You cannot argue with the results. Was it hard to get the new movie made? Because we've seen other films about technology companies having trouble in Hollywood these days. I'm thinking of Artificial, the film about Sam Altman, which got dropped by Amazon Studios and Lorine Powell Jobs, the widow of Steve Jobs, tried to kill your biopic of him. Has Medow ever wander threatened you over the social reckoning? Let me ask you your question. It was hard to get the movie made. Incredibly, no, it was not. And the reason why is Tom Rothman, who's the head of Sony, which is who made the first film. Yeah, they did. It's not like it was a no-brainer to greenlight this and aside from everything else, you'll also have this phenomenally powerful company with limitless resources who can see you at the drop of a hat. I'm pretty sure that, as my understanding, Sony did get letters from Meta. And I do not think those letters said, we're wishing you all the luck in the world, send us some tickets for opening night. Under ordinary circumstances, with a piece of non-fiction, the studio's legal department would do a thorough vet. With this movie, they hired an outside law firm just to handle the legal vet on this movie to make sure that every single thing that is presented as a fact is effect. No fracking? Oh, it's agonizing. And the things that I wasn't able to say or do are agonizing, but I will say, and the irony wasn't lost on anybody that we were doing a thorough fact check of a movie about a company unwilling to do the same thing. In 2019, you had this very public back and forth with Mark Zuckerberg. You wrote an open letter to him in the New York Times opinion pages where you said that Facebook was, quote, "assulting truth" by allowing lies to be pumped into the ecosystem. And then what seemed like a response, Zuckerberg posted a quote from your America is an easy speech from the American president, which talks about the value of free speech and the importance of free speech. Is this new film a continuation of that argument that you two seem to be engaged in over time? Yeah, it is as a matter of fact. And this was. I think I wrote that in 2019, yeah, okay. It was, and I wrote it as a response to Facebook announcing that they were no longer fact-checking political ads, which is an argument that that happens in this film. I saw the response that you're talking about, where the quote, shepherd's speech from the American president about how, about a free speech and about how the American citizenship is hard to get in one it. - You want free speech? Let's see you acknowledge a man whose words make your blood boil, whose standing center stage and advocating at the top of his lungs that which you would spend a lifetime opposing at the top of yours. - I found it a little aggravating because there's no chance that Mark, who's a very smart guy, and the people around him, who are very smart people, don't know the difference between an unpopular opinion and a lie. The first amendment doesn't protect lies if it did nobody would ever win a liable suit. - So, in some ways, this is your response. - I found a story to tell. I found a good story to tell where you can eat popcorn and milk duds. - You know, this is a classic underdog story, and there is something really hopeful about a regular person taking on a behemoth like Facebook. And the way you've told it is this hero's journey through Francis Hogan's tale. But, you know, I was just reading an interview that she gave this summer, and she said, we are worse off today than when I leaked the documents. And Jeff Horowitz, the watchdog reporter that is also sort of lionized in the film, he was effectively downsized out of his job at the Wall Street Journal. He's now working at Reuters. And Congress doesn't seem to be anywhere close to regulating online safety. I mean, I hate to just categorize what you're saying. - So, you're saying it hasn't been fixed? - I thought it was fixed. - I mean, I guess, I guess aren't things bleaker than perhaps you're portraying in the film. - Yes, but let me, let me just expand a little bit. - Please, expand. - On what you just said, okay. Francis Hogan is someone who, an incredibly employable person. Young woman could have gotten a job anywhere. Wanted to come work at Facebook because Facebook had at the time, something called a civic integrity team, okay. The civic integrity team was supposed to be the one team at Facebook, they take an oath in everything. So it's to be the one team at Facebook that does not care about growth, okay? That their only thing is safety. It was the civic integrity team that came to Mark and said we have found a way to reduce misinformation by 34%. The civic integrity team was dissolved and that's part of what sent Francis on her way, on her way to being a whistleblower. She, as she says in the movie, she did this because she wanted to help Facebook and not hurt it. - She wanted it to be better. - Yeah, yeah. She really believed in its mission, believed in what it could be, and believed that people like her could help her get there. This movie, I wanna say this without talking, without giving away the end or really anything in the third act, but it ends on an optimistic note. - It does. - Because of who wrote it. (laughing) - I'm glad to hear you acknowledge that. - It ends on an optimistic note, but not a rose colored, no, I mean it's upfront about what's still wrong. It's just that David threw a rocket Goliath and connected. - I mean, it starts with that question that I first asked you about making the world a better place. I mean, why do you keep on being attracted to those particular types of characters? - I think that you are asking me a very interesting question, and I don't know the answer. I think it has to have something to do with my father. I always felt like he kinda had one foot in another century. You know, he was just a very sweet, very bright man for whom decency was the measure of a man. - I wanted to talk a little bit actually about the way you grew up. Part of your family fled the Russian ghettos to come to the US, right? - Yeah, my father's parents were chased out of Russia by the Tsar's police. They've always been moved by the fact that they. - Because they were Jewish, right? - Because they were Jewish and they came here with $3 in their pocket as teenagers, my grandparents did. They had my father who, on his 18th birthday, signed up for the army in the middle of World War II. When he got out, when he was done, when the war was over, on the GI bill, he went to college and then law school. And in the course of one generation, the sorkins went from lower middle class to upper middle class and that's what the right kind of government assistance can do. - When I'm hearing you talk about your dad and I guess I've heard you also speak about your mom. Did they understand about patriotism and duty and what we owe our country and what our country owes us? - Yeah, well, what they understood about patriotism wasn't the kind of bumper sticker patriotism that we try to get sold of so often. I was very little at the time when the Watergate hearings were happening, but I do remember watching them that summer, the Sam Irvin's committee. And I didn't feel like my parents thought this was a national shame. I thought my parents felt like, look at this. Look at these guys railing against the most powerful person in the world. And on that day and August, when Nixon resigned, it was nothing but pride that the most powerful person in the world is giving a power. And there isn't a tank in the street. And so January 6th becomes a lot more heartbreaking. - And again, without giving too much away, obviously that January 6th plays a role in your New York film. - It comes out. - But I believe in all of us, you know, even now, I believe in this country I really do. - Yeah. - And when I say that again, I'm just reminded of my parents' aversion to what they would call bumper sticker patriotism, it's a different kind of belief than I think other people who call themselves patriots have. - And what is the distinction for you? - One is cheerleading. And the other is a belief in these institutions. I'm laughing because I'm thinking of, I was reading just a couple of years ago. I was reading an interview with Adam Kaye, who is one of my very favorites, he really is. And the interviewer asked him, who is you in Hollywood, who's a Republican? Who's a Republican? Who's the Republican Adam Kaye? And Adam said, I guess that's Aaron Sorkin. I thought, what are you going to do? How do you mind? And it was because of this romantic idea I have about our institutions. Which I do have, they're just, they are user sensitive. Isn't the thing. - User sensitive, meaning whoever's in charge of them will determine how useful they are or not. - I'm going to come back to this, but I want to just talk a little bit about your writing. I saw you say you once broke your nose writing. What happened? - Here's what happened. I'm very physical when I'm writing. I'm saying it all out loud. And this is on those occasions when it's going well. For me, most, I love writing, I hate not writing. And that's what most of writing is for me. Most of writing is climbing the walls, pacing around, I don't have anything. I always think that I'm never going to have another idea. I wrote 88 episodes of the West Wing, 87 times. I said to the people around me, guys, that was it. I've just used every word I know in every order I can think of to put them. I don't know any more stories. We're in real trouble. Same thing, the movie's same thing with plays. But on those days, when it's going well, I'm up and down from the desk. I'm walking around. I'm sometimes I've even forgotten to type it. I'm just talking, we're doing the scene and I realize I haven't written any of this down. During the newsroom of one night and often. it's kind of drifting off to sleep that that'll get an idea and I don't keep a notepad next to the night table the way I should. I got an idea for just a funny moment in the show where Jeff Daniel's character would lunch forward at someone and he'd be held back by two staffers. Just one of those we've seen this it's a comedy staple you know I'm going to get to that kind of thing and I just wanted to write it down because when I get one of those drifting off ideas I never remember it in the morning unless so I have a little home office I ran in there I started to make a note and then I wrote the next line and I was writing and I was getting really happy about what I was doing and I managed to while I was acting it out wander into the bathroom uh uh that's in my office and I was looking in the mirror and I did the lunch that I wanted Jess Carrick do and there were no staffers there to hold me back so I went splat into the mirror if it had been a Scorsese movie he'd have said I cut let's do it again this time a little less blood you have this very recognizable style of dialogue right super smart people exchanging super smart quips super fast obviously AI is a big issue when we're talking about creativity and writing have you been tempted to go on a chatbot and ask them to do an Aaron Sorkin um uh seen just because I can imagine that that is a prompt that they would know exactly how to emulate made me want to actually do it. No I mean emulate not improve on. I imagine a robot would be able to do it. No, no because you have a very distinctive style is what I meant. They would understand what the prompt meant. I appreciate that. No I haven't done it but would you like to hear my theory of uh you would you like me to tell you why why I'm optimistic about AI. Yes. Okay it's because I don't think it's going to work. Um I remember being at a dinner party a while back um and uh there was a painting on the wall an abstract painting um and I kind of liked it and I was looking at I don't know anything about art uh if the word abstract that's I've exhausted my uh but I I liked it I was I don't know what I was supposed to get from art it was happening I liked it and the host of the party came out to me and he said a machine painted that um but I was impressed at the technology but whatever it was I was feeling about that painting was gone um if you're someone who plays video games if you play Call of Duty those people you're shooting in Call of Duty you don't have an emotional connection to them and that would be your experience watching AI Shindler's List. I think we're going to find out uh that when you go into a movie theater you may not know the name of the person who directed it the name of the person who wrote it uh the name of the people who are in it I think we're going to find out that it matters to you that it was a person but everywhere people are using this technology in ways that uh shortcut the difficult process that you do to try and come up with an idea uh I believe you and the fact of the matter is uh especially given the uh you know how difficult it is for me to get an idea to get started uh the fact of the matter is that I think if I I went to one of these sites and said hey uh if you're right I don't know opening scene for a story about uh and it was able to to do it or even come close in a way where all I had to do is kind of dialogue polish on this and um I think I that would be all I'd ever do I don't think I'd ever try to have an idea again that's the danger uh-huh yeah so why are you optimistic first of all it's how I earn a living okay Lulu stop trying to argue me I have a job all right all right I just honestly believe uh at first I thought okay well maybe the future is going to be that non-AI films you'll just find them at art houses you know yeah every once in a while they'll be you know you'll hear about a town that's got a great non-AI theater uh in it but I don't believe it uh I I want to score sezy movie you know I want a Spielberg movie I want an out of McCay movie um I want a Greta Gerwig movie uh and uh I'm not I'm I'm gonna feel about an AI movie the same way I felt about that AI painting all right um I want to talk about how your writing evolved um in your 20s and 30s you would take drugs and stay up all night writing your sober now it didn't make me wonder what the differences between writing high and writing sober um did you is there did you find that that there's a certain level of creativity that is more accessible to you sober um contrary to the myth that you know a lot of people have um that are addicts that the only way that they can get the creative juices flowing is through you know chemical intervention well that's what I thought um it was the creative juices and and also the energy I mean you know there was a time when uh I would not begin writing until after the sun went down and my dearer came over um and uh and you know I was using coke I was a late bloom or when it came uh uh to drugs I went through high school college um even my early 20s without ever having even tried marijuana and it all changed in one night um what was the night it was just a particularly night I was living uh I was 25 uh I was sharing an apartment with a couple of friends in health kitchen uh in New York um and one of my roommates had uh got a job at a national tour something sublet their third of the apartment out to someone else uh and I was probably complaining about you know nah I can't write the uh I was trying to write a few good men um uh and I was probably complaining about having some trouble uh and she said hey or smoke this uh of relax and I had been offered weed a million times before my life and it said no every time for some reason this particular time uh uh I said yes and about a half hour later uh she laid out some lines uh on the table and I said yes and in my mind I did the coke and wrote a few good men uh you know the next day that that that's how my mind thought of it um and I thought you know I know this is bad uh uh for me but if it's the difference between being able to do this and not being able to do this I'm sorry I'm gonna have to uh do this uh and and that's why I thought for a long time and um uh I lost a decade of my life uh uh to drugs and it must have been very frightening to get sober with that connection being true that your livelihood and your addiction were well closely aligned it was I got a phone call out of the blue someone I'd never met or spoken to Carrie Fisher um who uh I had become uh uh it's from my 30s now um and I'd become friends with Warren Baty um he uh he kind of he has a gravitational pull and people kind of come into his orbit and I began to be one of the people in his orbit um I got a phone call from Carrie Fisher because Warren told him to call me and she said I it was the first thing she said I know you think you can't write without it and I'm telling you you're gonna write better than you've ever written before um so uh I went to rehab um and when I got out my big fear the one you get out of rehab you you're terrified of relapsing um you're always terrified of relapsing um um and my big fear was uh going through the having an idea trying to have an idea phase again and that I was gonna get frustrated and that I know the secret I I know how to get past this I know the phone number uh to use um so what I did at the beginning was I just took uh uncredited dialogue polish uh like two weeks on Jerry Bruckstein movie um uh that kind of thing just to come and get back uh in the groove of it and uh I didn't have to come up with an idea it was a dialogue polish uh and and nobody was depending on me and uh I got into it a little bit that way um and uh then took it from there what was the first time that you thought okay this is good I'm writing it and I'm okay writing it sober uh um the west wing pilot the west wing pilot yeah um uh not even the whole pilot just uh there were a couple of scenes in there. In particular, the last five minutes or so, 5-10 minutes of the West Wing. I'm not frightening Eugene O'Neill, but this is, I can do this sober. Okay. I want to circle back. We're going to talk again, but before we end. Oh, no. No, go ahead. I was hoping we were going to talk more about my drug use. By all means, if there's something more you want to add, before, I mean, the reason I ask about the drug use is. I understand. You know, it informs a life, right? It informs the way you think about things. I thought this was where you were going, actually, which is that I am someone Yes, I am a suburban kid who's, you know, had. I've been very lucky in my life, very lucky. But there was a lot of darkness, terrible darkness. My drug use wasn't partying. I never did it with anyone else. Something I did alone, I slaying it was very, very dark. Especially, remember, I went from snorting coke to smoking coke, free-basing, and that's a rough place to go. I thought you were going to say, "I don't understand how that squares with the optimism and romance." This is when you're writing. Why aren't you writing more about the darkness? It's a great question from Aaron Sorkin about himself. Let me ask you the question. I'm glad you're writing. I'm glad I got one of the greatest writers asking this. Bring it up. I don't know. I don't know. I mean, you've had darkness. Why? Because there have been plenty of times where I've thought, why aren't I writing about that? It's another place to go with the writing. Here's what I think it is. And honestly, this is the most thought I've. I've always been aware of it, but right now is the most thought I've ever given it. So here goes. I think the problem is that if I write more autobiographically, you're not going to like that character. And I want you to like me from my writing. How's that for a confession? It's a good one. Damn it. I did not mean to. There's someone off camera letting me know just how wrong that was. I think that's what it is. I don't think that's a bad impulse. I mean, I don't know why that's wrong. It's not wrong. It might be a little bit wrong for trying to sell a movie. But. You also want people to like the characters. I mean, what you're saying, what we've established here is in some way you are the characters and you want people to like you and the characters. Yeah. Through the characters. For instance, my second movie, my first movie was a few good men based on my first play, a few good men. But my second movie is one I'm not proud of at all. Everything went wrong, but I want to tell a quick story from it. I know you want to wrap up. No, I don't. We can stay here as long as you want to. This movie starred Alec Baldwin and Nicole Kidman and we were shooting it in North Hampton, Massachusetts on the campus of Smith and it was our rated thriller. And the director Harold Becker, we were in rehearsal. We were about a week away from shooting. The director Harold Becker said, you know, we need a sex scene with Alec and Nicole. It's ridiculous that there's no sex scene with Alec and Nicole. So I want you to go to your hotel room and. Two hot people. Yeah. You want to see them together. Yeah, and it's our thriller and yes, exactly. So I went back to my hotel room and I wrote four pages of kind of sexy banter ending with they fall onto the bed as we cut to the quad the next morning. I mean, a sex scene and he saw and I was young early in my career and he saw kind of the panic in my face and he said, "Snow big deal. Just go to your hotel room and you know, write down what you'd like to see Nicole do." So anyway, let me write down what I'd like to see Nicole Kidman do and then distribute it to the cast and crew including Nicole Kidman and her husband Tom Cruise, who I just did a movie with, I was unable to do it. I was simply unable to do it. As a result, Alec and Nicole and the director went into the director's trailer and they simply mapped out what they were going to do. And it's not sexy, it's not erotic, it's just crude. It's bad writing. Okay, and I hate that people seeing that movie, unfortunately not many of them did, but I hate that people think not that I'm that bad a writer. I don't like that either, but I hate that they think that that's what I think is charming or sexy or a comment that this is the as you can tell the best way I know how to communicate with people and that that's not me. And that's what I mean by I'm worried that if I if I did the other thing, now, now I'm going to be up all night about it. So you did up all night about this, like the idea of why haven't I written what I know, you know? Yeah. I want to hear what you come up with on the other side of that. I'll let you know. Thank you so much. We'll end it here, but we will speak again. Thank you. I'm looking forward to it. Yeah, me too. On the interview, we talked to our guest twice. So a few weeks later, Aaron Sorkin and I spoke again about whether or not his abiding faith in America's institutions is dead wrong. Hey, Lulu. How are you? You're in New York. I am. I am. And I'm well. Thanks. How are you? I'm good. I'm very well. I really enjoyed our conversation last time. I've been thinking a lot about it actually. And when we last spoke, we ended our talk with you sort of acknowledging that you write optimistic endings and you don't delve into your own darkness. Because you said you wanted to be liked and I was wondering if you sort of reflected on that. I have. I mean, I wanted to be liked that maybe simplifying it a little bit. I think, yeah, I don't think it's simplifying it too much actually. I think what I said was that maybe the reason that I did have. There was a dark period in my life and that's the reason I don't write about that is that I think people won't like me. You're right, but it's also possible. The reason I don't write about that is that my writing style doesn't really suit that. Maybe that's the reason. And listen, another reason also might be I don't have a lot of ideas. I don't have so many ideas that I can say, well, you know, that's a good idea, but I'm not going to do that because. I'm sorry I'm laughing, but it's it's funny to hear you say that because you're known as, you know, someone who's quite prolific, but go on. That's that's miraculous that that's happened. Listen, I'm doing press now for the social reckoning, but the movie is going to open on October 9th and on October 10th, I'm going to have to reckon with the fact that I don't have an idea for the next thing that I'm going to do. And I'm going to be climbing the walls. It's going to feel terrible. It's going to go on for a while. And when I don't have an idea, it's impossible for me to imagine that I'm ever going to have an idea. So if I'm October 10th, I had an idea that involved a protagonist who was going through the same kind of dark period that I went through. I'm not sure I would reject it for the reasons that I was saying. I might say, hey, it's an idea. I think I think I have a chance to write something good. In other words, what I'm saying, it's possible that I haven't written about it because I don't have an idea for it. All right, I want to turn obviously to something that just happened at the end of August, which is meta agreed to a major settlement where it has promised to make changes to its apps and how they are used by teenagers. And of course, this comes out of one of the things that Francis Hogan brought to light, which is how meta's apps negatively impact young people. So what's your reaction? What did you think when you saw that? Well, it's great news. It's terrific to a couple of things. Yes, that settlement to lawsuits brought Francis had provided some of the information that served as the foundation for those lawsuits. This settlement was about to end. negative nature of Facebook and that mark and senior people there, that they had a research. They knew it was addictive, just like the tobacco companies and nicotine. But the social reckoning is about, is Facebook's role in the rise of divisiveness, extremism, hyper partisanship. It's about something a little different. But, you know, the settlement is a great, it's a step in the right direction. I was listening to someone who's an expert the other day say, "This is a terrible problem that just got 5% better." Yeah, I'm not sure that the news and the settlement does much for how it shapes us adults, right? No. Which is at the heart of your movie. And it does nothing for what the movie is about, which is that Facebook, knowingly, has been a pumping material to you, designed to make you angry, because that's the stuff that you're going to reshare the most. And resharing is what keeps you scrolling, is for it's what keeps you engaged. So I'm assuming then that the news hasn't changed the way that you ended the film. No. I do wonder about how you tell the story of real events, because too soon, and you don't have the full context, too late, and things have moved on, and the story can feel dated. I mean, how do you think about that tension, about when to kind of deploy, you know, a fictional accounting of real events? But I want, I'm not interested in, and I don't want the movie, or any movie I do to be timely, I want it to be timeless. I don't want it to feel like it was ripped from a yesterday's headlines. I want this movie to be just as good 10, 20 years from now, as it is when you see it in October and November. So I mean, I make decisions based on that. In fact, you asked me if we changed the end of the movie at all because of the settlement that was reached last week. A couple of people at the studio had suggested, well, you should, you know, there's a post script on the end of the film, and you should put that there, that metta settled for 17 points, something billion dollars. And I didn't do that because I didn't want it to feel like we just made the movie yesterday. And we reached these decisions. This is a movie again that's going to work just as well years from now, as it will when you see it. I have one more question about the social reckoning. You know, the first film, the social network is widely considered to be one of the best films of the 2010s, just on everyone's list. The social reckoning is already getting some snark just with the trailers. Are you worried about the reception? No. Am I worried about the reception of the trailer? No, just of the movie. Of course. I'm worried about the reception of everything that I do. Listen, the idea of the social network was also met with snark. I remember, like, word got out that I was working on this movie about Facebook and people thought that it was going to be about Drew Barrymore and Paul Rudd falling in love, you know, over Facebook, friending each other and falling in love. And we were able to leverage those low expectations of people really surprised when they saw the movie and saw what it was about. I understand that the social reckoning is living in the shadow of the social network. But I really believe that five or ten minutes into the movie you're going to have forgotten all about that and that you'll be engaged with the movie. Okay. I want to talk about a few of your upcoming projects. You're in New York right now for rehearsals of a few good men on Broadway. And that was, of course, the project that launched your career in your 20s. And of course, it started as a play that became the iconic movie. What do you think the play has to say about this moment now? You know, I. There have been some opportunities in the past to do Broadway revival of a few good men. And I've passed on those opportunities, mostly because a few good men was my first play. I was very young when I wrote it. It was my starter play. I kind of had to learn on the job. And I look at the play now, great memories of doing it, but I look at the play now the way most of us look at our high school yearbook picture. I can do better. And so that's why I've passed. This opportunity came along, and I grabbed at it for a couple of reasons. Number one, Michael Arton is directing it. Number two, I had said, all right, if we do it, I want to treat it as a new play. I want a chance to polish it. Okay. I'm not going to write a. I can't write a brand new play, but let me go back and polish some of the clunky or dialogue and some of the areas where I drop the ball. And I've done that. And finally, there is suddenly a relevance to the story of two young Marines who are in or carte marshals for following an illegal order. You know, it was in the news, Mark Kelly, the Senator, former Shuttle pilot and other members of Congress who are former officers, simply made a PSA for service members, reminding them that they're not obligated to follow illegal orders, not obligated. They're not permitted to follow illegal orders, and it's very difficult for an enlisted person because they're also required to follow orders. So are these young people supposed to go to law school to figure out what an illegal order is? It's a tricky thing. Suddenly, again, the story of a kind of psychopathic commander who gives this illegal order is now relevant. I mean, you know, one way or another, we are sort of coming to the end of the Trump term and the Trump era. And I was thinking about how much you're, as we discussed, sort of fictionalization of politics has permeated the way that we understand that world. Is there a politician who you find inspiring right now? Yeah. Uh, uh, I listen, I'm James Talleriko, uh, I find inspiring, uh, I think if you're asking me, is there anyone who's JFK inspiring, uh, no, uh, there isn't. We're waiting, uh, for that person, um, I don't care if they have a D or an R, uh, after their name, um, uh, we are just dying of thirst for inspiration and leadership. Um, last question, which is this, uh, and it comes back to something we touched on at the beginning of our conversation, which is this idea of institutions and your reverence for them. Because one of the major currents in political life right now is this distrust of institutions, right? Um, you've said that you're romantic about the institutions of American democracy. And it also brings me back to the social reckoning. I want to confess that watching the movie was a little bit disorienting because of its reverence for working within the system, Congress, the courts, journalism, right, to achieve this goal. And we're at this moment where people are angry at our institutions. They feel the system is rigged. Do you not despair sometimes, though, that you haven't, that your reverence for something is misguided? Uh, it, it may well be, um, uh, you know, you're not the first person who suggests that it, it may well be. That's adjusting it. I'm asking. Yeah. Uh, um, and, and I, it, it may well be, but it, what's the alternative? I mean, what, what would I do, uh, if it was misguided, if I said any of these institutions are, uh, they're terrible, they're rigged, uh, what do we do? All we have are elections. That's the only time that, uh, I mean, it, uh, other than taking to the streets, uh, that's the only time that we get to raise our hand. Aaron Sorkin, I have really enjoyed this conversation. So have I. So much. I really appreciate your time. Thanks very much. Uh, uh, thank you. You bunch of pessimists, I was wrong with you, you cynics. You know, watch more of your work, you know. Yeah. Yeah. That's so good. Thank you for this. That's Aaron Sorkin. The social reckoning is in theaters. To watch this interview and many others, you can subscribe to our YouTube channel at youtube.com/@symboltheinterviewpodcast. This interview was produced by Wyatt Orm, it was edited by John Wu, mixing by Sophia Landman, original music by Dan Powell, Rowan Nemisto, and Marion Luzano. Photography by Devin Yelkin, the rest of the team is Priya Matthew, Paola Newdorf, Seth Kelly, Joe Bill Munoz, Eddie Costas, Jeremy Rocklin, Gabby Contreras, Kathleen O'Brien, and Brooke Mentors. Our executive producer is Alison Benedict. Next week, I speak with Sylvester Stallone, who has a new memoir that unpacks his brutal childhood and the making of Rocky. I'm Lulu Garcia Navarro, and this is the interview from The New York Times.