Aaron Sorkin
Aaron Sorkin is a prominent American playwright, screenwriter, and director known for his influential contributions to both theater and television. Born in New York City in 1961, Sorkin developed an early passion for theater, leading him to study musical theater at Syracuse University. His breakthrough came with the play "A Few Good Men," which he adapted into a successful film. Sorkin also created critically acclaimed television series such as "Sports Night" and the iconic political drama "The West Wing," which earned multiple Emmy Awards and significantly shaped modern television writing.
Despite some setbacks, including controversies and challenges with deadlines, Sorkin continued to succeed in film with projects like "The Social Network," for which he won an Academy Award, and "Moneyball." He later ventured back into television with "The Newsroom," which explored the inner workings of a news broadcast. Sorkin has also made a name for himself as a director, with works including "Molly's Game" and "The Trial of the Chicago 7." Recently, he announced plans for a film about the January 6 Capitol attack, reinforcing his ongoing engagement with significant cultural narratives. Sorkin's style and dialogue have transformed the landscape of television and film, elevating the perception of screenwriting as an art form.
Aaron Sorkin
- Born: June 9, 1961
- Place of Birth: New York, New York
PLAYWRIGHT, SCREENWRITER, AND DIRECTOR
Sorkin, an influential screenwriter and playwright, helped develop the second golden age of American television with his showsSports NightandThe West Wing.
Early Life
Aaron Sorkin was born in New York City in 1961 to Jewish parents. His love for the theater developed early, when his parents took him to see many Broadway plays during their initial run in the 1960s, such as Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1962). Sorkin attended Scarsdale High School before enrolling at Syracuse University in 1979. While at Syracuse, Sorkin studied acting and graduated in 1983 with a bachelor of fine arts degree in musical theater. After finishing college, he worked odd jobs in New York City before writing his first play, Hidden in This Picture, which opened Off-Broadway in 1988. The success of the play instilled in Sorkin a sense of confidence that his true talent in the theater was to be a writer and not an actor.
Sorkin wrote the play A Few Good Men after talking to his sister, who was working as a U.S. Navy judge advocate general. The play was based on a case that was similar in nature to the one that his sister had discussed with him. The play opened on Broadway in 1989 and quickly caught the attention of Hollywood producer David Brown. With Brown’s backing, Sorkin’s play was sold to Castle Rock Entertainment, and Sorkin was offered his first chance to work as a screenwriter in Hollywood.
Life’s Work
Sorkin adapted his play for Hollywood, and the film A Few Good Men (1992), which starred Tom Cruise, Demi Moore, and Jack Nicholson, was well received by critics and audiences alike. After that success, Castle Rock Entertainment hired Sorkin as an in-house screenwriter. He wrote the screenplay for Malice (1993), a dark medical thriller, and The American President (1995), a film that examined the role of the American presidency combined with elements of romance and political intrigue. As he was writing the screenplay Sorkin watched continuous replays of Sports Center on the Entertainment and Sports Network (ESPN). He became interested in how a sports show would function and attempted to write another screenplay based on this idea. Struggling with the structure, he decided to transform it into a television series.
Sorkin sold the show Sports Night to Walt Disney’s network, the American Broadcasting Company (ABC). He wrote and co-produced the show with his creative collaborator Thomas Schlamme. Despite being acclaimed critically, the show lasted only two seasons because of low ratings. Sorkin attempted to sell the show to other networks, but because of his growing involvement with another project the networks were reluctant to pick up the show.
In 1997, Sorkin met John Wells, a producer working for Warner Bros. Television, to discuss possible script ideas. Sorkin claimed that he was unprepared for the meeting and as a result began to pitch Wells an idea for a show based on leftover material from his American President script. Like Sports Night, the new series would focus on the day-to-day activities of a high-pressure work environment, the West Wing of the White House. Wells was intrigued by the idea of a drama series about the American presidency and American politics. He sold the series idea to Warner Bros. Television, which in turn sold the series to NBC. The West Wing premiered on September 22, 1999, and it captured the attention of critics and audiences alike, winning nine Emmy Awards in its debut season, including for outstanding drama series. Sorkin was credited with writing eighty-eight episodes of the series, including the Emmy Award-winning Christmas-themed episode “In Excelsis Deo.” Despite his genius, Sorkin has not remained free of controversy. He and fellow writer Rick Cleveland fought over the credit for the episode “In Excelsis Deo.” Sorkin’s other problem, and the one that impacted his connection with the series, was his inability to turn episodes in to the studio on time and on budget. Therefore, in 2003, Sorkin and his collaborator and fellow producer Schlamme were removed from the show.
Sorkin’s passion for writing and television were on display when he revealed in an interview with Charlie Rose on the Charlie Rose Show that, since leaving The West Wing, he has been working on a new series idea, taking place behind the scenes of a late-night comedy-sketch show similar to NBC’s Saturday Night Live. Sorkin began shopping the series around to networks in 2005 under the title Studio 7 on the Sunset Strip. Sorkin’s show was a hot commodity that led to a bidding war between the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) and NBC for the right to air the series. NBC prevailed, with an offer of nearly two million dollars an episode, and the show premiered in September 2006, under the revised title Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. Like his previous series, the show focused on a group of highly educated and dedicated individuals in the workplace as they struggled to mesh their values with those of their employer, a fictional American television network. The pilot was well received, but the show was canceled after one season because of low ratings. Sorkin found himself at a crossroads: Of his three television series, only one had succeeded.
Sorkin returned to writing for the stage when he adapted his screenplay based on the life of American inventor Philo Farnsworth into a play. The Farnsworth Invention, which detailed the battle between the young inventor and the head of Radio Corporation of America (RCA), David Sarnoff, began its run in 2007 and ended in 2008. Sorkin also returned to writing screenplays for such films as Charlie Wilson’s War (2007) and The Social Network (2010), which details the sordid and scandalous history of the founding of Facebook, the Internet social networking site. The latter won Sorkin the Academy Award for best adapted screenplay. Moneyball (2011), a sports drama, was nominated for a number of Academy and Golden Globe awards, and the American Film Institute named it one of its Movies of the Year. Sorkin briefly returned to television with the series The Newsroom, continuing in the vein of Sports Night and Studio 60 by going behind the scenes of a news broadcast. The show ran for three seasons, from 2012–2014, and received praise for its actors, but critical response to the writing was less positive. Sorkin then focused again on film, turning out several well-received screenplays. For the biographical film Steve Jobs (2015), about the founder of Apple Inc., Sorkin won the Golden Globe for Best Screenplay; Molly's Game (2017), a crime drama based on the memoir of the same title by Molly Bloom, was his directorial debut and also received widespread praise and many award nominations. He also adapted the classic novel To Kill a Mockingbird for the stage; the adaptation was scheduled to premiere on Broadway in December 2018.
Continuing his directing roles, in 2020, he undertook The Trial of the Chicago 7 and in 2021, Being the Ricardos, an Amazon Original. He also released a screenwriting course on MasterClass. In 2023, he announced that the had a stroke during his reimagining of Camelot for Broadway production, and feared he would not be able to continue his career. He quit smoking and began following a strict diet and exercising every day. Sorkin expressed his gratitude for his relative health as the show made its way to the stage in April 2023. As of 2024, Sorkin was writing a movie about the January 6 attack on the US Capitol.
Significance
As a result of Sorkin’s involvement with television in the late 1990s and into the 2000s, the style of writing and delivery of dialogue has been transformed. Writing for television is no longer considered a second-class assignment. In fact, because of Sorkin, much of the aesthetics of television in terms of language and visuals has been altered. Premium cable shows such as Deadwood, Big Love, and True Blood and standard cable shows such as Battlestar Galactica, Mad Men, and others owe a debt to the sophisticated sound and look of Sorkin’s television series.
Bibliography
Fahy, Thomas, ed. Considering Aaron Sorkin: Essays on the Politics, Poetics, and Sleight of Hand in the Film and Television Series. McFarland, 2005.
Frazier, Kierra. "Aaron Sorkin to Write Movie on Jan. 6 Riot: ‘I blame Facebook for January 6'." Politico, 26 Apr. 2024, www.politico.com/news/2024/04/26/aaron-sorkin-to-write-movie-on-jan-6-00154593. Accessed 2 Sept. 2024.
Paulson, Michael. “Aaron Sorkin Revamps 'Camelot,' with Challenges Classic and New.” The New York Times, 22 Mar. 2023, www.nytimes.com/2023/03/22/theater/aaron-sorkin-camelot-broadway.html. Accessed 2 Sept. 2024.
Rollins, Peter C., and John E. O’Connor, eds. The West Wing: The American Presidency as Television Drama. Syracuse UP, 2003.
Rose, Lacey. "Aaron Sorkin Goes Off Script: Fears, the Critics and His Private Battles Behind 'Molly's Game.'" The Hollywood Reporter, 29 Nov. 2017, www.hollywoodreporter.com/features/aaron-sorkin-goes-script-fears-critics-his-private-battles-behind-mollys-game-1062019. Accessed 2 Sept. 2024.
Sorkin, Aaron. "How I Would Script This Moment for Biden and the Democrats." The New York Times, 21 July 2024, www.nytimes.com/2024/07/21/opinion/biden-west-wing-aaron-sorkin.html. Accessed 2 Sept. 2024.
Sorkin, Aaron. “Interview with Aaron Sorkin.” On Writing Magazine, vol. 18, Feb. 2003.
Steinberg, Don. "Aaron Sorkin Takes On a Tricky Script: His Own." The Wall Street Journal, 28 Dec. 2017, www.wsj.com/articles/aaron-sorkin-takes-on-a-tough-script-his-own-1513785888. Accessed 2 Sept. 2024.