Highlights: Aaron Sorkin interview
Via Indiewire:
Aaron Sorkin has a lot going on these days: In addition to feverishly writing the final season of his HBO drama “The Newsroom,” he’s collaborating with director Danny Boyle on a Steve Jobs biopic and considering another project based on Michael Lewis’ bestseller “Flash Boys.” But none of that stopped him from taking time to hang out in Nantucket over the weekend. The veteran writer of punchy dialogue, often spoken by powerful, conflicted men, dropped by the Massachusetts island to receive the Nantucket Film Festival’s screenwriting award. Then, on Saturday afternoon, he sat down with MSNBC’s Chris Matthews for an hour-long conversation about his career writing for television and movies. The wide-ranging discussion included anecdotes about the original ending of “Charlie Wilson’s War,” Eduardo Saverin watching “The Social Network,” and why he’s decided to bring “The Newsroom” to a close.
The trademark Sorkin “walk and talk” is a practical solution to his limitations as a writer.
I write nothing of any visual interest whatsoever. I essentially write radio plays. So as a director, I have to find a way to make it visually interesting. One way of doing it is, if we’re having this conversation, let’s walk to have this cup of coffee and we’ll have movement.
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He knows how to write anti-heroes.
We’re getting ready now for [a biopic on] Steve Jobs, which is another one with an anti-hero. The trick of an anti-hero is that you can’t judge the character. You have to write that character as if they’re making the case to god that they can go up to heaven. So you’ve got to find what it is in that character that’s like you.
He has one major failing as a writer.
My Achilles Heel is story. It’s the truth. You had a thing last night [at the Nantucket Film Festival’s “Late Night Storytelling event”] where people told stories. I wouldn’t have been able to do that. Part of the reason is that I always get my stories not from the stories themselves but from what they sound like.
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