Transcript of Aaron Sorkin Goes Off Script

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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 and talk...

Billion dollars here, billion dollars there. Sooner or later, it starts to add up to real money.

The snappy dialogue...

You're really gonna let him loose in the White House where there's liquor and women? We can hide the women, but the man deserves a drink.

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 Reckoning.

Facebook isn't the ref. That's the point. That's the point, Charlie.

He both wrote and directed the film, which focuses on real-life whistleblower Frances Haugen. 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, on to the interview. Aaron Sorkin, thank you so much for coming on The Interview. It's great to have you.

It's my pleasure.

I wanna 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.

Mm-hmm.

You've written stories that use our politics and institutions as a backdrop so many times. The West Wing, The American President, Charlie Wilson's War, The Newsroom, The Trial of the Chicago 7. 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, 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 eating popcorn. So that's what I'm thinking about while I'm writing. Beyond that, I write idealistically and romantically.

You've said that a lot.

I find that these areas— government, the news, journalists— that's where the stories are. There are just stories there that really suit the way I like to write.

Well, explain that, though, because, you know, in 2020, you told my colleague David Marchese 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 2 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 watched The West Wing. I really do. And in terms of heroes without capes, I'll, you know, 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, you know, 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, bipartisan, where people come together. to do the better thing. Yes.

Meaning no one is going to step up and be a— set The West Wing aside, be a Frank Capra-esque character. And that the stuff that I write, when it's not, you know, Moneyball, or Charlie Wilson's War, or Steve Jobs, you know, I'm told a lot that it's an optimistic, fantasy.

And you just used 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 Frances Haugen, 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 I or anyone else is going to write a sequel to The Social Network. Famous last words.

Right.

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 2 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. You know, 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 2. You know, 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 Haugen and Jeff Horwitz 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, 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 did talk about how you weren't sure this was such a great technology.

What I remember, uh, is this very successful social network is being built by an extraordinarily antisocial guy. That this person, uh, who, you know, was uncomfortable kind of in the social structure of, of college the way many of us are, Mm-hmm. invented his own social structure that he couldn't be shut out of the way he was shut out of the final clubs in The Social Network. Uh, and, uh, you know, he'd be the mayor, uh, of that social structure. That was— I mean, The Social Network was how, uh, this— 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 were making a painting and not a photograph.

Mm-hmm.

But, you know, looking back on that now, some of the details you changed are pretty big. That idea of this antisocial person creating this social network. I mean, he was dating his now wife, 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 research, her 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 7, for example.

Chicago 7.

Molly's Game.

Molly's Game, being the Ricardos, Steve Jobs.

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'm really just using the characters for parts. I use just really— and they had a point. There's an idea that I'll get about a character's motivation. uh, like Mark's. They'll— I'll do my research. I'll, I'll learn everything that I can, uh, uh, 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 in the process of writing it, it becomes the same as a fictional character.

Mm-hmm.

Uh, for me, it becomes my, uh, character, uh, uh, that I'm creating. The— and it sounds like you're going to get to it in a moment, but the studio's legal department will make sure that, you know, I'm staying inside the lines. But it's this imaginary thing that's— and it has my voice, and eventually it's going to be played by, you know, 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, he's 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 in A Few Good Men, that was the first thing that I wrote. There's a whole speech about how he thinks That what he's doing is protecting America. I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom that I provide and then questions the manner in which I provide it. The Penguin, the Joker, they just want to rule Gotham City. Those are villains. The others are antiheroes. And 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?

Well, tell me 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. And I just want to add that the character and the person not only have me trying to defend them, Jeremy Strong, who plays— he 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 late at night. And as soon as his last shot was over on his last day of shooting, as soon as I called, cut, check 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, his own voice. If I'd been playing Jeff, I'd have been defending Jeff. And I know exactly what he—

What is Mark Zuckerberg's case to God now? I mean, in—

In that he's, uh, bringing people closer together. That's been his mission from the beginning. Uh, and I imagine that the advances that he's making with certain technology, with AI and with the dumb glasses, uh, uh, that, you know, he imagines those are steps forward for all of us.

Just to stay with, um, Jeremy Strong's portrayal, um, Jesse Eisenberg turned down the role. And, you know, 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.

Yeah.

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, you know, 13, 14-year-old kids, coming up to him, wanting him to sign a business card that said, I'm CEO, bitch, and things like that. He doesn't like that. He 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. But So Jesse wasn't going to do it. Jeremy was the next call. And as it turned out, I mean, 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. That was—

Did you know?

No, I had no idea.

Do you know what they said to each other? Have you asked him?

I— no, I've— 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. And he was— I meant it when he said he did not speak in his own voice on the set or walk the way Jeremy He was completely immersed. So, you know, that's Jeremy's process. I had told all the other actors in his scenes, you know, guys, he's not gonna be hanging out with you at craft service. He's not gonna be yucking it 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 8 or 9 days of shooting they had. And that's what happened. And 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 Laurene Powell Jobs, the widow of Steve Jobs, tried to kill your biopic of him. Has Meadow ever warned or threatened you over the social reckoning?

I'm— let me answer your question. Was it hard to get the movie made? Incredibly— no, it was not. And the reason why is Tom Rothman, who's the head of Sony.

Okay. Which is who made the first film, obviously.

Yeah, yeah, they did. Uh, there's, uh, uh, you know, it's not like it was a no-brainer, uh, uh, to greenlight this. And aside from everything else, you also have this phenomenally, uh, uh, powerful company with limitless, uh, uh, resources who can sue you at the drop of a hat. Um, I, I'm pretty sure that, uh, uh, it's my understanding that Sony did get letters, uh, uh, from Meta. And I do not think those letters said, we're wishing you all the luck in the world. You know, get it. Send us some tickets for opening night. No, no.

Right.

Under ordinary circumstances, with a piece of nonfiction, the studio's legal department would do a thorough vet. With this movie, they hired an outside law firm.

Oh, wow.

Just to handle the legal vet on this movie, to make sure that every single thing that is presented as a fact is a fact.

Nerve-wracking?

Oh, it was agonizing. And the things that I wasn't able to say or do—

Oh, really?

—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. Hmm.

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, assaulting truth by allowing lies to be pumped into the ecosystem. And then in what seemed like a response, Zuckerberg posted a quote from your America Isn't 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, because— and this was, I think I wrote that in 2019.

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 happens in this film. I, I saw the response that you're talking about where they quote Shepard's speech from the American president, uh, about how— about free speech and about how, you know, the American citizenship is, is hard. You gotta want it. You want free speech? Let's see you acknowledge a man whose words make your blood boil, who's 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 libel 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 Frances Haugen'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—

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 just expand a little bit.

Please, expand.

On what you just said, okay? Frances Haugen is someone who— an incredibly employable person. A 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.

Mm-hmm.

Okay. The Civic Integrity Team was supposed to be the one team at Facebook— they take an oath and everything— supposed 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%. Um, the Civic Integrity Team was dissolved, uh, and that's part of what sent Frances, uh, on her way, uh, uh, on her way to being a whistleblower. She, as she says in the movie, she did this because she wanted to help Facebook, uh, and not hurt it.

Um, she wanted it to be better.

Yeah, yeah. She, 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. Okay?

I'm glad to hear you acknowledge that.

It ends on an optimistic note, not a rose-colored, uh, uh, no, I mean, it's upfront about, um, what's still wrong. It's just that David threw a rock at Goliath and, and connected.

I mean, it starts with that question that I first asked you about making the world a better place. I mean, why are you keep— 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 kind of had one foot in another century.

Yeah.

You know, he was just a very sweet, very bright man for whom Decency was just 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 U.S., right?

Yeah. My father's parents were chased out of Russia by the czar's police. I've always been moved by the fact— and they—

Because they were Jewish?

Yeah, yeah. Because they were Jewish. And, you know, they came here with $3 in their pocket, that kind of— 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. What 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 so often. I was very little at the time when the Watergate hearings were happening, but I do remember watching them that summer, the, um, uh, Sam Ervin's committee. And I didn't feel like my parents thought this was a national shame. Um, 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 in August, uh, uh, when Nixon resigned, it was nothing but pride That the most powerful person in the world is giving up 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 film. It comes up. It comes up.

But I believe in all of us. Even now, I believe in this country. I really do.

Yeah.

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. 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 McKay, 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 McKay? And Adam said, hmm, I guess it's Aaron Sorkin. What are you, out of your mind? Um, uh, uh, I am. And, uh, it was because of, uh, of this, uh, romantic idea I have about our institutions, which I do have. They're just— they are user-sensitive, is the thing.

User-sensitive, meaning whoever's in charge of them will determine how useful they are or are not.

Yeah.

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, I'm saying it all out loud. And this is on those occasions when it's going well. For me, most of the— it's— 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. You know, 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 with movies, 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. 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, uh, uh, one night— and often it's kind of drifting off to sleep that, uh, that'll get an idea, and I don't keep a notepad next to the night table the way I should— um, I got an idea, uh, uh, for just a funny moment, uh, in the show where Jeff Daniels' character would lunge forward at some— someone, and he'd be held back, uh, by 2 staffers.

Just one of those— we've seen this. It's a comedy staple, you know, I'm gonna get you, 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 that's in my office. And I was looking in the mirror, and I did the lunge that I wanted Jess Carrack to 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, all right, 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, uh, 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, scene? Just because I can imagine that that is a prompt that they would know exactly how to emulate.

It made me want to actually do it saying that.

No, I mean emulate, not improve on. Emulate.

I imagine a robot would be able to do what she did.

No, no, emulate, 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— would you like me to tell you why? Please expound. Why I'm optimistic about AI? Yes. Okay. It's because I don't think it's going to work. I remember being at a dinner party a while back, and there was a painting on the wall, an abstract painting. And I kind of liked it. And I was looking at it. I don't know anything about art. The word abstract, that's— I've exhausted my—

Vocabulary.

But I, I liked it. I was— I don't know, whatever you're supposed to get from art, it was happening. I liked it. And the host of the party came up to me and he said, a machine painted that. And I was impressed with the technology. But whatever it was I was feeling about that painting, was gone. 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 Schindler's List. I think we're going to find out 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, 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 shortcut the difficult process that you do to try and come up with an idea.

I believe you. And the fact of the matter is, especially given the, you know, how difficult it is for me to get an idea, to get started, the fact of the matter is that I think if I went to one of these sites, and said, hey, do me a favor, write an opening scene for a story about— and it was able to do it or even come close in a way where all I had to do was kind of a little dialogue polish on this. And I think 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 out of a job. All right. All right.

But I just honestly believe— at first I thought, okay, well, maybe the future is going to be that non-AI films, you'll just find them in art houses, you know?

Yeah.

Every once in a while there'll be, you know, you'll hear about a town that's got a great non-AI theater in it. But I don't believe it. I want a Scorsese movie. You know, I want a Spielberg movie. I want an Adam McKay movie. I want a Greta Gerwig movie. And I'm not— I'm going to feel about an AI movie the same way I felt about that AI painting.

All right. I want to talk about how your writing evolved. In your 20s and 30s, you would take drugs and stay up all night writing. You're sober now. It did make me wonder what the difference is between writing high and writing sober. Did you find that there's a certain level of creativity that is more accessible to you sober, contrary to the myth that a lot of people have 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 dealer came over. Um, and, uh, and, you know, I was using coke. I, I was a late bloomer when it came to drugs. I went through high school, college, even my early 20s without ever having even tried marijuana. And it all changed in one night.

What was the night?

It was just a particular night. I was living— I was 25. I was sharing an apartment with a couple of friends in Hell's Kitchen in New York. And one of my roommates had got a job at a national tour or something. sublet their third of the apartment out to someone else. And I was probably complaining about, you know, no, I can't write. I was trying to write A Few Good Men.

Hmm.

And I was probably complaining about having some trouble. And she said, here, smoke this, relax. And I had been offered weed a million times before in my life and had said no every time. And for some reason, this particular time, I said yes. And about a half hour later, she laid out some lines on the table, and I said yes. And in my mind, I did the coke and wrote A Few Good Men the next day. That's how my mind thought of it. And I thought, I know this is bad 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 going to have to do this. And that's how I thought for a long time. And I lost a decade of my life to drugs.

And it must have been very frightening to get sober with that connection being true, that your livelihood and your addiction were so closely aligned.

It was. I got a phone call out of the blue from someone I'd never met or spoken to, Carrie Fisher. who I had become— in my 30s now, and I'd become friends with Warren Beatty. 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. I got a phone call from Carrie Fisher because Warren told him to call me. And she said— it was the first thing she said, I know you think you can't write without it, and I'm telling you, you're going to write better than you've ever written before. So I went to rehab, and when I got out, my big fear— when you get out of rehab, you're terrified of relapsing. You're always terrified of relapsing. And my big fear was going through the having an idea, trying to have an idea phase again, and that I was going to get frustrated and that I know the secret. I know how to get past this. I know the phone number to use. So what I did at the beginning was I just took uncredited dialogue polish, like 2 weeks on a Jerry Bruckheimer movie.

Yeah.

That kind of thing, just to Can I get back in the groove of it? And I didn't have to come up with an idea. It was a dialogue polish. And nobody was depending on me. And I got into it a little bit that way and 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?

The West Wing pilot.

The West Wing pilot?

Yeah. Not even the whole pilot, just— there were a couple of scenes in there. In particular, the last, say, like the last 5 minutes or so, 5, 10 minutes of the West Wing. And I just thought, I'm not frightening Eugene O'Neill, but this is— I can do this sober.

Hmm. 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. Let me— before, I mean, the reason, the reason I ask about the drug use is—

Oh, I understand.

It, you know, it informs a life, right? It informs the way you think about things.

It does. And 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.

Yeah.

Terrible darkness. My drug use wasn't partying. I never did it with anyone else. Something I did alone. Isolating. Very, very dark. Especially remember, I went from snorting coke to smoking coke, freebasing. 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 romanticism in your writing. I'm loving this interview. Why aren't you writing more, you know, 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've got one of the greatest writers asking this. Why do you 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 thought— Going to the darkness. 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 I 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. 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, you are the— 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, Um, my second movie— my first movie was A Few Good Men, based on my first play, A Few Good Men. Um, but my second movie is one I'm not proud of, uh, at all. Everything went wrong. Um, but I'm just— I want to tell a quick story from it because 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, Nicole Kidman. Um, and we were shooting it in Northampton, Massachusetts, on, on the campus of Smith. Uh, and it was a R-rated thriller. And the director, Harold Becker, we were in rehearsal, we're about a week away from shooting. 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—

2 hot people. Yeah, you want to see them together.

Yeah. And it's an R thriller. And yes, exactly. So I went back to my hotel room. And I wrote 4 pages of kind of sexy banter, ending with, they fall onto the bed as we cut to the quad the next morning. And Harold read this and said, no, no, no, I mean a sex scene. And he saw— and I was young, it was early in my career— and he saw kind of the panic in my face. And he said, it's no big deal. Just go to your hotel room and write down what you'd like to see Nicole do. So anyway, you want me to 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, you know, what they were going to do. And it's not sexy, it's, it's not erotic, it's just crude. It's bad writing.

Okay.

Um, 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 come-on. That this is the, as you can tell, the best way I know how to communicate with people. And it— and that's not me. And that's what I mean by I'm worried that if I if I did the other thing. Now I'm going to be up all night about it. See what 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 talk to our guests 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.

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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'd sort of reflected on that.

I have. I mean, saying I wanted to be liked, that may be 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, you know, that I did have— there was a dark period in my life, and that 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 that 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 funny to hear you say that because you're known as, you know, someone who's quite prolific. But go on.

That's miraculous that that's happened. Listen, I'm doing press now for The Social Reckoning, but the movie's going to open on October 9th, and on October 10th, I'm gonna have to reckon with the fact that I don't have an idea for the next thing that I'm gonna do. And I'm gonna be climbing the walls. It's gonna feel terrible. It's gonna go on for a while. And when I don't have an idea, it's impossible for me to imagine that I'm ever gonna have an idea. So if on 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 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.

Yeah.

And of course, this comes out of one of the things that Frances Haugen 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, that, settlement, the lawsuits brought, uh, Frances had provided some of the information that served as the foundation for those lawsuits. This settlement was about the addictive nature of Facebook, uh, and that Mark and senior people there, that they had research, they knew it was, uh, addictive, just like the tobacco companies and nicotine. What 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 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 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. 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. 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?

What I want— I'm not interested in— 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 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 postscript on the end of the film, and you should put that there, that Meta settled for $17-point-something billion. 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, full stop.

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. People were 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 5 or 10 minutes into the movie, you're going to have forgotten all about that, and that you'll be engaged with what— 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 a 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, I have 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 Arden is directing it. Number 2, 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.

Oh.

Okay? I'm not gonna write a— I can't write a brand-new play, but let me go back and polish some of the clunkier dialogue and some of the areas where I dropped the ball. And I've done that. And finally, there is suddenly a relevance to the story of 2 young Marines who are in— or court-martialed 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. But 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 your, 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. Listen, James Tallarico, I find inspiring. I think If you're asking me, is there anyone who's JFK-inspiring? No, there isn't. We're waiting for that person. I don't care if they have a D or an R after their name. We are just dying of thirst for inspiration and leadership.

Last question, which is this, 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?

Mm-hmm.

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?

It may well be. You're not the first person who suggests that. It may well be.

I'm not suggesting it. I'm asking.

Yeah, yeah. And it may well be, but what's the alternative? I mean, what would I do If it was misguided, if I said, hey, these institutions, they're terrible, they're rigged, what do we do? All we have are elections. That's the only time that— I mean, other than taking to the streets, 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.

Thank you.

You bunch of pessimists. What is wrong with you, you cynics?

We gotta watch more of your work, you know?

Yeah.

Thank you for this.

That's Aaron Sorkin. The Social Reckoning is in theaters October 9th. To watch this interview and many others, you can subscribe to our YouTube channel at youtube.com/@theinterviewpodcast. This interview was produced by Wyatt Orms, It was edited by John Wu, mixing by Sofia Landman, original music by Dan Powell, Rohan Nimisto, and Marian Lozano, photography by Devin Yalkin. The rest of the team is Priya Matthew, Paola Neudorff, Seth Kelley, Joe Bill Muñoz, Eddie Costas, Jeremy Rocklin, Gabby Contreras, Kathleen O'Brien, and Brooke Winters. 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 García Navarro, and this is The Interview from The New York Times. This week on The Wirecutter Show, do you struggle to find delicious and creative ways to get vegetables on the table? What makes good vegetarian cooking great is leaning into the seasons and not thinking of recipes so much as a mandate, but a suggestion. We're talking with New York Times Cooking's Tanya Sichensky about her new book, Veg Everything. Find The Wirecutter Show on the New York Times app or wherever you listen to podcasts.