By Miguel Mike Medina
Photo Credit: Gilbert Flores/Variety via Getty Images
Academy Award-winning screenwriter and director Aaron Sorkin stopped by to do an interview with Esquire.
Sorkin wrote many scripts such as The Social Network, Molly’s Game, A Few Good Men, Moneyball, and many more fantastic films. Sorkin wrote and will direct the sequel to The Social Network, which is called The Social Reckoning.
Sorkin has two big obstacles to overcome.
“Writing isn’t easy for me,” Sorkin said. “I love it. When I’m done with something, whether it’s a movie, a play, or an episode of television, I can’t imagine ever being able to write something else. I wrote 88 episodes of The West Wing. I’ve used all the words in every order. My other obstacle is that I lost my 30s to cocaine. I’ve been clean and sober for a long time now.”
Rob Reiner, who directed A Few Good Men, was the first filmmaker to take a chance on Sorkin. Reiner believed in Sorkin and wanted him to write the script. His trust in Sorkin paid off and set the stage for the rest of Sorkin’s career.
There’s a uniqueness to delivering a Sorkin line when actors put it to use in a film or TV show. Not every actor has it in them to deliver Sorkin lines from the script.
“You have to have a facility with language,” Sorkin said. “There are two things an actor can’t fake. An actor can’t fake being smart, and an actor can’t fake being funny. With The West Wing cast, we just miraculously, with every one of those principal roles, scored the cast the right person to do it.”
One of the best movie lines ever written by Sorkin is “You can’t handle the truth,” which was delivered by Jack Nicholson in the movie A Few Good Men. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid is one of Sorkin’s favorite scripts.
Miguel Mike Medina is the publisher of The MMM Journal. He can be reached at medinamiguelmike@gmail.com and themmmjournal@gmail.com
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