The Daily - Aaron Sorkin Still Believes in American Institutions, Even If No One Else Does

0:00In 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. You're really gonna let them loose in the White House with those liquor and women. We can hide the women, but the man deserves a drink. The soaring monologues. We stood up for what was right.

0:33His 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, look. That's the point, Charlie.

1:03He 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.

1:30And 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. 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 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 Seven, and some might add the social network and your new film, The Social Reckoning, to that. And we're gonna talk about that in a minute. How do you view your role in that equation?

2:26It'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. You've said that a lot. 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 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.

3:23I 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 watched the West Wing. I really do.

3:52in terms of heroes without capes. From time to time, you'll be watching the news and someone will say something like, there's not gonna 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 gonna shut down. There's not gonna be a West Wing moment.

4:17Meaning 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 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, Steve Jobs, you know, I'm told a lot that it's an optimistic fantasy. And you just use those words romantic. Yes, and it is. However, it does not require supernatural powers to do those things. 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.

5:14It 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.

5:36Why 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.

6:05That's what this is. To answer your question, there were two reasons why in 2022, I said that 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. And after Cambridge Analytica, there are 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. I'm 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...

6:54I 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...

7:21how 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 did 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...

8:19guy 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 he was shut out of the final clubs in the social network. And he'd be the mayor of that social structure. That was, I mean, the social network was how the Facebook was invented.

8:49Social 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.

9:18to 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 this social network, I mean, he was dating his now wife Priscilla Chan at the time. And so it wasn't exactly true.

9:47But 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?

10:17I 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 non-fiction, and in some cases, about people who are still alive. The trial of the Chicago Seven, for example. Chicago Seven. The Molly's Game. Molly's Game, being the Ricardo Steve Jobs. Yeah, exactly. One...

10:46critic 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. And they had a point. There's an idea that I'll get about a character's motivation, like Marx.

11:12I'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. And it sounds like you're going to get to it in a moment.

11:42the 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 anti-hero, which is what Mark is, not a villain. Describe the difference for people who might not understand in your mind what an anti-hero and a villain is. An anti-hero 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.

12:33that what he's doing is protecting America. 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 anti-heroes. And in the case of Mark, or again, any anti-hero, 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 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. And

13:33I 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.

13:58Um, and as soon as his last shot was over on his last day of shooting, uh, as soon as I called cut, uh, tech 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, uh, in his own voice that if I'd been playing Jeff, I'd have been defending Jeff. Um, and I knew exactly what he meant. Well, what is Mark Zuckerberg's case to God now? I mean, in, in... That he's, uh, bringing people closer together?

14:26That'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 he imagines those are steps forward for all of us. Just to stay with Jeremy Strong's portrayal.

14:48Jesse 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.

15:15Coming up to him wanting them wanting him to sign a business card that said I'm CEO bitch And things like that that he doesn't like that he kind of kind of looks like the guy and Just wouldn't do it and you know, he meant it too because He was offered every incentive that usually works with with actors but So Jesse wasn't gonna 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 I did you know no one had no idea. Did you know what they said to each other? Have you asked him? I Know I've I 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?

16:11I 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 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 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 is just gonna be living with this for, I think it was eight or nine days of shooting.

17:10they 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 Alton, which got dropped by Amazon Studios. And Lorraine 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?

17:39Let 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. 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 a powerful company with limitless resources who can see you at the drop of a hat. I'm pretty sure that, it's my understanding that Sony did get letters from Metta. 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,

18:32with a piece of nonfiction, 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 a fact. Nerve-wracking? No, it's agonizing. And the things that...

19:03that 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.

19:30where 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 is an easy speech from the American president, which talks about the value of free speech and the importance of free speech. 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.

19:57because, 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 saw the response that you're talking about where they quote shepherd speech from the American president about how...

20:25About a free speech and about how you know, the American citizenship is is hard to get wanted 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.

21:19you 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.

21:42And 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.

22:07I guess aren't things bleaker than perhaps you're portraying in the film? Yes. But let me just expand a little bit on what you just said. Francis Haagen is someone who is 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. Okay. The civic integrity team was supposed to be the one team at Facebook. They, they take an oath and 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%. Um, the civic integrity team was dissolved.

23:04And 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 she really believed in its mission believed in what it could be And believed that people like her could uh could help her get there this movie uh i want to say this without talking without giving away the end or really anything in the third act um but uh it ends on an optimistic note it does um because of who wrote it okay i'm glad to hear you acknowledge that it ends on an optimistic note but not a rose colored uh uh no i mean it's a

23:59front about what's still wrong. It's just that David threw a rock at 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're asking me a very interesting question, and I don't know the answer. I think 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. 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 US, right? Yeah.

25:02My father's parents were chased out of Russia by the Tsar's police. They've always been moved by the... Because they were Jewish? Yeah, yeah. Because they were Jewish and they came here with three dollars 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 Sorkans 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

25:59understood 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 Sam Irvins 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 in August, 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

26:58January 6th plays a role in your new film. It comes up. It comes up. But I believe in all of us, you know, 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?

27:28One 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...

27:56you 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. 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 is the thing. User sensitive, meaning whoever's in charge of them will determine how useful they are or are not. Yeah. I'm gonna come back to this, but I wanna 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.

28:52And this is on those occasions when it's going well. For me, 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 gonna have another idea. I wrote 88 episodes of The West Wing.

29:2287 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.

29:47Sometimes 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, one night, and often it's kind of drifting off to sleep, that I'll get an idea. And I don't keep a notepad next to the night table the way I should. I got an idea.

30:09for just a funny moment in the show where Jeff Daniels character would lunge 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 gonna give 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 lunch that I wanted Jess Carrick do and there were no staffers there to hold me back so I went splat into the mirror

31:05If 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...

31:32scene 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. 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, would you like me to tell you why I'm optimistic about AI? Yes.

32:02Okay, it's because I don't think it's gonna 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, I don't know anything about art. The word abstract, that's, I've exhausted my, but I liked it. I was, I don't know.

32:30whatever's 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. When 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.

32:59I 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

33:53to 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. I just honestly believe at first I thought okay well maybe the future is gonna be that non-AI films you'll just find them in art houses you know every once in a while they'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

34:54I'm not, I'm gonna feel about an AI movie the same way I felt about that AI painting. All right, I wanna talk about how your writing evolved. In your 20s and 30s, you would take drugs and stay up all night writing. Your sober now, it did make me wonder what the difference is between writing high and writing sober. Did you, is there, did you find that, There's a certain level of creativity that is more accessible to you sober Contrary to the myth that you know 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 It was the creative juices in and also the energy. I mean, you know, there was a time when I Would not begin writing until after the Sun went down and my dealer came over

35:54And, you know, I was using Coke. 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 particularly night. I was living, I was 25.

36:21I 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. And I was probably complaining about having some trouble. And she said, Here smoke this 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 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, you know the next day that that that's how my mind thought of it and I thought

37:22You know, 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 gonna have to do this and And that's what 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 well 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 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...

38:22told 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 gonna 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 re like two weeks on Jerry Brookheimer movie. Yeah that kind of thing just to Come and get back

39:21in 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.

39:55not even the whole pilot, just there were a couple of scenes in there, in particular the last, say like last five minutes or so, five, 10 minutes of the West Wing. You know, I just thought, 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, No, I was hoping we're gonna talk more about my drug use By all means before I mean the reason the reason I ask about the drug uses I don't understand it You know it's informs a life right it informs the way it does and I thought this was where you were going actually Which is that I am someone?

40:56Yes, I am a suburban kid who's 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, Iceland, very, very dark.

41:21especially remember I went from snorting coke to smoking coke free-basing and That is that's a rough place to go. I thought you were gonna say I don't understand how that squares with the optimism and romanticism you're writing. Why aren't you writing more?

41:41about the darkness. It's a great question from Aaron Sorkin about himself. Let me ask you the question. I'm glad you write it. I've got one of the greatest writers asking this. 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, 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...

42:11I'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 gonna 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.

42:44There'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 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.

43:29at 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 in Northampton, Massachusetts on the campus of Smith. And it was a R-rated thriller. And the director, Harold Becker, we were in rehearsal. We were about a week away from shooting. The director, Harold Becker said, 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. 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.

44:27And Caldrethus said, no, no, no. 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, it's no big deal. Just go to your hotel room and, you know, write down what you'd like to see Nicole do. So anyway, what do you mean?

44:50me 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 Cruz, 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.

45:17Sexy, 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 that this is is the as you can tell the best way I know how to communicate with people and it and that that's not me and That's what I mean by I'm I'm worried that if I if I did the other thing Well, now I'm gonna be up all night about it. See you did up all night about this like the idea of why haven't I

46:12written 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 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. Hey, Lulu. How are you? You're in New York. I am. I am. And I'm well. Thanks. How are you?

46:45I'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, I wanted to be liked that maybe.

47:11Simplifying 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's that the reason I don't write about that is That I think people won't like me you 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 funny to hear you say that because you're known as, you know, someone who's quite prolific, but go on. That's...

48:12That's miraculous that that that's happened listen. I'm I'm doing press now for the social reckoning But the movie's gonna open on October 9th and 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,

49:05It'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.

49:16I want to turn, obviously, to something that just happened at the end of August, which is Metta 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 Metta'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.

49:44to a couple of things. Yes, that settlement, the lawsuits brought Francis had provided some of the information that served as the foundation for those lawsuits. This settlement was about the addictive nature of Facebook and that Mark and senior people there, that they had research, they knew it was addictive, just like the tobacco companies and nicotine.

50:14what the social reckoning is about is Facebook's role in the rise of divisiveness, extremism, hyperpartisanship. 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.

50:42I'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.

51:11scrolling is 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 a fictional accounting of real events? What 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 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.

52:15based 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 meta settled for 17. 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.

53:06The 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. Oh, of course. Yeah, 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.

53:37People thought that it was going to be about Drew Barrymore and Paul Rudd falling in love 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.

54:07But I really believe that five or 10 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...

54:35The 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 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 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...

55:35I 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 two young Marines who are in or cart marshals for following an illegal order. You know, it was in the news, Mark Kelly, the senator.

56:02former 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 a legal 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, I'm

57:15James 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...

57:45dying 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? 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.

58:44Do you not despair sometimes, though, 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?

59:12If it was misguided, if I said, hey, these institutions are, 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. Thank you so much. I really appreciate your time. Thanks very much. You bunch of pessimists.

59:48That was wrong with you, you cynics. You know, watch more of your work, you know. Thank you for this. That's Erin 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 slash at symbol, the interview podcast. This interview was produced by Wyatt Orm. It was edited by John Woo, mixing by Sophia Landman.

1:00:14Original music by Dan Powell, Rowan Nemistow, and Marion Lazano. Photography by Devin Yalkin. The rest of the team is Priya Matthew, Paola Newdorf, Seth Kelly, Joe Bill Munoz, Eddie Costas, Jeremy Rocklin, Gaby Contreras, Kathleen O'Brien, and Brooke Minters. Our executive producer is Allison 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.