Aaron Sorkin Goes Off Script

The Interview

Lulu Garcia Navarro interviews acclaimed screenwriter Aaron Sorkin about his new film, The Social Reckoning, which explores the impact of Facebook

Key takeaways

• Sorkin's film The Social Reckoning focuses on the role of Facebook in driving political divisiveness and extremism.
• The writer describes his approach as 'romantic' and 'idealistic,' often focusing on characters that represent achievable greatness.
• Sorkin reveals that Carrie Fisher played a pivotal role in encouraging him to pursue writing during his recovery from addiction.
• He expresses skepticism toward AI-generated art, arguing that the emotional connection to human creators is irreplaceable.
• The interview touches on Sorkin's upcoming Broadway revival of A Few Good Men directed by Michael Arden.

Main topics

• The Social Reckoning film
• Writing philosophy and idealism
• Facebook and social media impact

Notable quotes

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.

Conclusion

An intimate portrait of a major cinematic voice reflecting on the inte

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:00) Hey friends, Americans living abroad can legally vote in the U.S. election. Register or get tailored support at VoteFromAbroad.org. Look, state deadlines are super close, so don't waste another second. Go to VoteFromAbroad.org now and click Request My Ballot. Ask to receive it by email. All you gotta do is fill it out and send it back in. Don't miss this chance to shape the future. Don't delay. VoteFromAbroad.org. Speaker 3 (0:25) In my mind... I did the Coke and wrote A Few Good Men, you know, the next day. Speaker 2 (0:36) I'm Lulu Garcia Navarro, and today I'm in Beverly Hills interviewing Aaron Sorkin. Speaker 2 (0:43) The walk and talk. Speaker 4 (0:45) Billion dollars here, billion dollars there. Sooner or later, it starts to add up to real money. Speaker 2 (0:48) The snappy dialogue. You're really going to let him loose in the White House with his liquor and women? We can hide the women, but the man deserves a drink. The soaring monologues. We stood up for what was right. His work often dramatizes the institutions that shape American society, like the presidency in his hit TV show, The West Wing. or Big Tech in the social network about Mark Zuckerberg and the founding of Facebook. If Speaker 4 (1:14) you guys were the inventors of Facebook... You'd have invented Facebook. Speaker 2 (1:18) 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 Francis 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 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 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 that equation? Speaker 3 (2:51) 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. And Speaker 2 (3:16) I Speaker 3 (3:16) find that these areas, government, Speaker 3 (3:22) the news journalists, that's where the stories are. They're just stories there that really suit the way I like to write. Speaker 2 (3:32) 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. Speaker 2 (3:48) I guess not to be trite, but do you write to make the world a better place? Speaker 3 (3:52) 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. Speaker 3 (4:18) 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. 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 Speaker 2 (4:43) that there's not going to be a resolution, bipartisan, where people come together to do the better thing. Speaker 3 (4:49) 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 or Steve Jobs, you know, I'm told a lot that it... It's an optimistic fantasy. And you just use those words, Speaker 2 (5:17) romantic. Speaker 3 (5:17) 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. Speaker 2 (5:33) 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. Speaker 3 (6:01) Right. Speaker 2 (6:01) Why didn't you think it was possible then, and what changed your mind? Speaker 3 (6:04) Okay, well, let me say first. I'm not really sure you can call this a sequel. 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, Speaker 3 (6:36) There were two reasons why in 2022 I said that. One was I had been – there had been a few people in my world asking me for a while, you should write something else about Facebook. There's another story here after Cambridge Analytica. There were a number of things along the way where people thought I should revisit it. And I just – didn't want to be the writer of Jaws 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 Horowitz and what it was they uncovered. Speaker 2 (7:29) 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. Speaker 2 (7:41) 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? Speaker 3 (8:05) Well, do you tell me, what are you seeing in that movie where I was skeptical of social media? Speaker 2 (8:12) 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 Speaker 3 (8:35) I remember is this very successful social network is being built by an extraordinarily antisocial guy. That this person who, you know, 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 and the social network. And, you know, he'd be the mayor of that social structure. That was, I mean, the social network was how 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. Speaker 2 (9:28) And we'll get to that, but one more question about the way you wrote that movie, Speaker 4 (9:32) which Speaker 2 (9:33) is that Facebook was born out of Zuckerberg's sort of desire Speaker 3 (9:37) for revenge. Speaker 2 (9:38) You've been asked before about your sort of responsibility to be fair to people when you're writing stories that involve actual characters in real life. And you've said you're making a painting and not a photograph. Speaker 2 (9:55) 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. Speaker 3 (10:19) 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? Speaker 2 (10:36) Right. And because it's so important, because it's the way so many people understand things, what is fair? Speaker 3 (10:42) 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 Speaker 2 (11:03) of the Chicago 7, for example. Speaker 3 (11:04) Chicago 7. Molly's game. Molly's game being Ricardo, 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 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. I'll do my research. I'll learn everything that I can. 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 the process of writing it it becomes the same as a fictional character uh for me it becomes my uh a character uh that i'm creating the and it sounds like you're going to get to it in a moment but um 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 anti-hero, which is what Mark is, not a villain. Speaker 2 (12:41) Describe the difference for people who might not understand in your mind what an anti-hero and a villain is. An Speaker 3 (12:47) 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. The whole speech about how he thinks. that what he's doing is protecting America. I Speaker 4 (13:00) 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. Speaker 3 (13:11) 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. Speaker 2 (13:33) You don't think Mark Zuckerberg is a villain? Speaker 3 (13:37) Are we talking about real Mark or my Mark? Well, tell me Speaker 2 (13:41) the distinction. Speaker 3 (13:43) 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. Speaker 3 (14:03) 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. What is Mark Speaker 2 (14:46) Zuckerberg's case to God now? That he's bringing people closer together. Speaker 3 (14:52) That's been his mission from the beginning. And I imagine that the advances that he's making with certain technology, with AI and with the dumb glasses, Speaker 3 (15:02) that, you know, he imagines those are steps forward for all of us. Speaker 2 (15:10) Just to stay with Jeremy Strong's portrayal, 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... Speaker 3 (15:23) It's the only reason he said he didn't want to do it. Yeah. He does