Speaker 1: You're listening to playback a Variety podcast. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Variety Awards editor Chris Tappily three times and it was
Speaker 1: sort of the sound of the crew not really being
Speaker 1: able to help, laughing a little bit off camera. Um,
Speaker 1: but boys a track sound terror, hey man, Live and learn.
Speaker 1: I guess thanks for coming on. Basically, the way this works,
Speaker 1: I've got like a little intro at the top, and
Speaker 1: then I'll bring you in and we'll chat for half
Speaker 1: an hour. Great, everybody settled? Is this what we're gonna have? Okay? Cool? Laura,
Speaker 1: hang on one sect. Sure. I would just like you
Speaker 1: to take my phone. It's on vibrate. I think. Okay.
Speaker 1: I had my phone ring in the middle of one
Speaker 1: of these. I was like, it never happens with me,
Speaker 1: because anybody it's the the you know, the talent. I
Speaker 1: think if the phone rings in the middle of the
Speaker 1: at least you could do is technical. I think you
Speaker 1: always had to add the flavor to it, all right.
Speaker 1: My guest today is the Oscar winning screenwriter behind films
Speaker 1: like A Few Good Men, Charlie Wilson's War and The
Speaker 1: Social Network, and the Emmy winning writer behind series like
Speaker 1: The West Wing and the newsroom. Now he's moving behind
Speaker 1: the camera for the first time as a director of
Speaker 1: Molly's Game, The Wild True life story of high Stakes
Speaker 1: Poker Maven Molly Bloom. His name is Aaron Sorkin, and
Speaker 1: we're pleased to have him on the show. Thanks for
Speaker 1: coming on, sir. It's pleasure to be here. I kind
Speaker 1: of hate actually saying the high Stakes Poker Maven Molly Bloom,
Speaker 1: because she's so complex, she's so more, so, much more
Speaker 1: than even this one story in her life's exactly right,
Speaker 1: and that is was the genesis of the movie. I
Speaker 1: was asked to read the book that she wrote and
Speaker 1: to meet with her, and I read the book. The
Speaker 1: book is a wild ride. It's a really fun read. Uh. Um.
Speaker 1: But I was expecting to meet the high stakes poker
Speaker 1: may Haven Molly Bloom, or the poker princesses they called her.
Speaker 1: I was expecting to me, frankly, someone I wasn't gonna
Speaker 1: like very much, someone or someone I wasn't gonna respect
Speaker 1: very much. I was expecting to meet someone who was
Speaker 1: just cashing in on their decade long brush with celebrity. Uh.
Speaker 1: My first meeting with Molly was one hour long and
Speaker 1: within ten minutes she had completely turned me around. Uh.
Speaker 1: She is not that at all. She's remarkably bright woman,
Speaker 1: hyper competent woman. She has a rise sense of humor. Uh.
Speaker 1: But she's not at all interested in gossip or and she,
Speaker 1: it turns out, is built out of character and integrity. Uh.
Speaker 1: And far from cashing in on her Brushwood celebrity, she
Speaker 1: has paid a big price for not cashing in on
Speaker 1: her Brushwood celebrity. She would have been guaranteed her freedom.
Speaker 1: She would have had all her money was taken from
Speaker 1: her by the FBI, she would have been given all
Speaker 1: of her money back plus interest. Uh. If only she
Speaker 1: would tell some of the stories that she had, which
Speaker 1: she was, by the way, perfectly willing to do if
Speaker 1: it meant putting bad guys in jail. Well, what I
Speaker 1: mean by that for people who are confused by now
Speaker 1: is uh. When she moved the game from Hollywood to
Speaker 1: New York, things trouble found her because she had inadvertently
Speaker 1: seated at the game three members of the Russian mob
Speaker 1: as well as an FBI in format um. And the
Speaker 1: FBI was their intention to use Molly to prosecute Uh.
Speaker 1: These Russian mobsters and Molly doesn't like mobsters any more
Speaker 1: than anyone else. She got beaten up by one and
Speaker 1: a gun uh put in her mouth, but she didn't
Speaker 1: know anything that could help the prosecutors at all. The
Speaker 1: prosecutors had her there so that the New York Post
Speaker 1: would cover the trial. Um. Back to the first meeting. Uh,
Speaker 1: she immediately struck me as uh real life and very
Speaker 1: unique movie hollen And who had only told the tip
Speaker 1: of the iceberg in the book, there was much more story,
Speaker 1: and she she wrote a very good story that left
Speaker 1: bread crumbs to a better story. That first meeting led
Speaker 1: to hundreds of others meetings with her over the course
Speaker 1: of a seven in eight months. So when you were
Speaker 1: reading the book, did you get that sense that there
Speaker 1: was more outside what I was reading the book? Um?
Speaker 1: Every once in a while there seemed to be a
Speaker 1: contradiction or a question like Uh she mentions games that
Speaker 1: lasted two and three days, but she never mentions drugs
Speaker 1: uh in there. And I don't know how a game
Speaker 1: poker game came last two or three days. If there
Speaker 1: isn't that much red bull in the world, there are
Speaker 1: aphetamines around someplace or coke? Um uh And uh So
Speaker 1: when I said that to her, she said, there were
Speaker 1: drugs and I'm two years clean. Uh. Now that very
Speaker 1: moment is in the movie. Uh. What what was developing
Speaker 1: in my head over time was that there are really
Speaker 1: two stories here that that are in bed with each
Speaker 1: other and should be. Uh. There is the story she
Speaker 1: tell in the book, which is the story of a young,
Speaker 1: very promising, world class skier who's headed to Harvard Law School. Uh.
Speaker 1: And she's got a life mapped out and it's going
Speaker 1: to be a great life. And and and not just
Speaker 1: a successful one, but a good one. She or her
Speaker 1: intention was to begin a foundation that seeds entrepreneurial entrepreneurial women. Um. Uh.
Speaker 1: So the book is the story of how she goes
Speaker 1: from there too, uh, running the world's most exclusive high
Speaker 1: stakes poker game. When she finished the book, she hadn't
Speaker 1: yet been arrested. Um. And as Charlie and Yourse, Elvis's
Speaker 1: character in the movie says, he finished your book before
Speaker 1: the good part happened. Right. So there was that story,
Speaker 1: and then there was the story of today of what
Speaker 1: was going on at the time that I met her,
Speaker 1: which was the FBI trying to coerce her uh into
Speaker 1: testifying um all a lot of Hollywood players whose names
Speaker 1: we know, wanting to buy her life rights, but only
Speaker 1: on the condition that she would tell the stories that
Speaker 1: she was unwilling to tell the southern district of New
Speaker 1: York as and finally, her father. Uh. In the book Uh,
Speaker 1: she speaks about her father at the very beginning of
Speaker 1: the book, and she explains that you know, he's a
Speaker 1: he's a hard driving father and that uh success in
Speaker 1: academics and athletics were important to him, for her and
Speaker 1: for her two younger brothers, the youngest of whom, while
Speaker 1: she was ranked third in North America in women's mobiles,
Speaker 1: he was ranked first in the world in men's mobiles.
Speaker 1: So uh, she was it was hard for her to
Speaker 1: sort of break into the rankings of her own Thanksgiving dinner. UM.
Speaker 1: But she told me, you know, about her strained and complicated,
Speaker 1: very nuanced relationship with her father. And I just started
Speaker 1: seeing a movie that was bigger than uh than the
Speaker 1: Poker Maithan than the Poker Princess, uh, and a movie
Speaker 1: that's unexpected uh, and and a movie hero UH that's
Speaker 1: unexpected and uh and that's I almost immediately knew that
Speaker 1: the thing I was supposed to right next. I wasn't
Speaker 1: gonna write next. I was gonna write this next. I
Speaker 1: had a feeling about it. I had the hardest time
Speaker 1: pitching it, describing it to people. I knew what it was,
Speaker 1: but I couldn't articulate it. I can't. I can't remember
Speaker 1: the timeline. But did you come into it like you?
Speaker 1: I want to direct this. I wanted to be no, no,
Speaker 1: no no. I had no thought of directing. I came.
Speaker 1: I came into it the same way I can't come
Speaker 1: to everything. It came have come into everything else. I
Speaker 1: finished the first draft, I turned it into There were
Speaker 1: producers now, Mark Gordon and any Pascal, and I turned
Speaker 1: it into them. A few nights later, we had dinner.
Speaker 1: There's a piece of paper in front of each of
Speaker 1: us with a list of about twenty names of directors.
Speaker 1: We went through each one, pros and cons. By the
Speaker 1: time we got to the end, Uh, they put the
Speaker 1: pieces of paper down, looked at me and said, but
Speaker 1: we think you should direct it. And I didn't really
Speaker 1: take them seriously. I I kind of us shucks it.
Speaker 1: But they made it clear that they were very serious,
Speaker 1: and they made their pitch. Why I talked to directors
Speaker 1: I know and trust, and I got encouragement from them.
Speaker 1: But the reason ultimately I decided to direct it for
Speaker 1: better or for worse, was I knew that there was
Speaker 1: with this story a gravitational pull uh back toward the book,
Speaker 1: back towards the shiny objects, the decadence, the amor the money,
Speaker 1: the sex, uh and the bold faced Hollywood names um
Speaker 1: and UH. I wanted to do a story set against
Speaker 1: the backdrop of that. Uh. You know, obviously there's gonna
Speaker 1: be poker in this movie, but it's not a poker movie.
Speaker 1: We're never gonna care who wins or loses a hand.
Speaker 1: This isn't the same as rounders, um. Uh. It's it's about, uh,
Speaker 1: how did she get from here to there? And now
Speaker 1: let's put the stuff that's not in the book in there,
Speaker 1: the Russians and her father, UM and I believe that
Speaker 1: it can be much just a deeper, more resonant, more emotional,
Speaker 1: and best of all, more uplifting story. That this was
Speaker 1: a story about a real life movie hero uh who
Speaker 1: has the kind of her her qualities that I tend
Speaker 1: to uh write about that with romanticism and an idealism,
Speaker 1: I directed it for that reason, and I directed it
Speaker 1: because I wanted to ensure uh, the protection of those
Speaker 1: both faced Hollywood names, uh, that no one might have
Speaker 1: the idea of, you know, hey, I know how he
Speaker 1: can make this the buzziest movie of the year. Um.
Speaker 1: So I did it for those reasons. That's that's my story.
Speaker 1: That's how I wrote the movie. What's more interesting is
Speaker 1: what happened next, because the most important decision I was
Speaker 1: gonna make is director was who was going to play Molly?
Speaker 1: Right one second, though, before you get to that, I
Speaker 1: do want to talk about that, but I'm curious, did
Speaker 1: you write it? Would you have written it differently if
Speaker 1: you knew you were going to direct it? You know,
Speaker 1: It's funny. I did a paddel last night where someone
Speaker 1: asked that question, and as I told the person who
Speaker 1: asked a question, not only was that the first time
Speaker 1: I've ever been asked that question, it was the first
Speaker 1: time I've ever thought about that question. Right in that
Speaker 1: moment when I had to answer, was the first time
Speaker 1: I ever thought about it? And the answer is absolutely yes,
Speaker 1: I would have. I am so grateful that I didn't know,
Speaker 1: uh that I was directing it when I was writing it.
Speaker 1: Because I would have been too scared, uh to to
Speaker 1: write some of the scenes that I wrote. The whole
Speaker 1: opening sequence, the first eight minutes has more action in
Speaker 1: it than every movie I've written combined. Right, I like,
Speaker 1: I write people talking in rooms, and it's like, the
Speaker 1: director will take care of this exactly right. The director
Speaker 1: is going to know how we do this ski crash. Um.
Speaker 1: The director is gonna know how to you know, do
Speaker 1: the getting beaten up scene? Um. Uh. The director is
Speaker 1: gonna make these poker scenes look fantastic. Uh. You know
Speaker 1: Fincher came along and made computer hacking look like a
Speaker 1: bank robbery. Uh. That's what directors do. They take this
Speaker 1: thing that I write, which doesn't have a whole lot
Speaker 1: of visual interest and uh and they give it visual interests.
Speaker 1: I write the lyrics, they write the music. Um so
Speaker 1: uh so I am grateful that that I didn't know,
Speaker 1: uh that it wouldn't have been as good a screenplay
Speaker 1: if I had known that I was directing him. Um So,
Speaker 1: what was the biggest learning curve just before we get
Speaker 1: into Jessica and everything? You know, you never even I
Speaker 1: don't think directed television anything. I've never directed anything before.
Speaker 1: I I'm not a complete production, Novice. I've I've been
Speaker 1: on the set every day of every movie that I've written. Uh.
Speaker 1: And as the show runner in television, you're involved in
Speaker 1: every aspect of production from prep to post, and obviously
Speaker 1: ire at the script too. Uh. Still, the biggest learning
Speaker 1: curve was going to be that in the twenty five
Speaker 1: years I've been a professional writer, I had managed to
Speaker 1: absorb none of the science of filmmaking at all. I
Speaker 1: couldn't pick a long lens out of a police lineup. Uh.
Speaker 1: Enter Charlotta Christiansen, our cinematographer. Charlotta uh flew over from Denmark,
Speaker 1: where she lives, to meet with me. She had just
Speaker 1: gotten done shooting two movies, A Girl on the Train,
Speaker 1: which looked beautiful and Fences, which also looked beautiful, but
Speaker 1: more importantly was directed by first time director Denzel Washington.
Speaker 1: Uh So she had plenty of experience as a DP,
Speaker 1: but experience working with the first time director, and told
Speaker 1: Charlotta we talked about um my vision for the look
Speaker 1: of the movie and two separate looks when we were
Speaker 1: in present day and when we were showing the story
Speaker 1: of Molly going from skier to uh to poker princess. Uh.
Speaker 1: But I told her, you know, listen, I'm just scared
Speaker 1: that I don't have the vocabulary two that you that
Speaker 1: you need the director to have for you to be
Speaker 1: able to do your job. Uh. And she said, no,
Speaker 1: don't worry about it at all. Here, here's what's gonna happen.
Speaker 1: We're gonna we're gonna talk about the scene. Um, we're
Speaker 1: going to create a shot list of everything that you
Speaker 1: want to get and I'm I'm going to be very opinionated.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna tell you I also want to get this shot. Uh.
Speaker 1: And this shot I'm never gonna tell you. No, I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna do your shot, but I'm I'm gonna add
Speaker 1: a couple of my own. But in terms of lenses
Speaker 1: and lighting, I got this, have this handheld device and
Speaker 1: I'm gonna snap a lens on it, and you're gonna
Speaker 1: look through it, and you're gonna tell me if you
Speaker 1: like what you see, and if you do, I'm going
Speaker 1: to take the lens off the handheld device in pluted
Speaker 1: on the camera. Um. Uh. And that's how we do it.
Speaker 1: And um, there was a lot less for me to
Speaker 1: be scared of than uh than I thought the truth
Speaker 1: of the matter is that for every area of film production,
Speaker 1: there's an expert uh in that position. So UM stand
Speaker 1: on their shoulders. Uh, it's exactly right, whether it's production design, lighting,
Speaker 1: camera department, uh, anything. Um, I'm I've written the script,
Speaker 1: I've prepped. Uh, you know, spent months with the department heads.
Speaker 1: We know what it's gonna look like. We know what's
Speaker 1: going to happen every hour of every day of shooting.
Speaker 1: We know what's to be accomplished. And now I can
Speaker 1: just be with the actors uh and do And that
Speaker 1: happened quickly enough, early on and just instantly, and it
Speaker 1: needed to. We didn't have a choice. Uh. There was
Speaker 1: no ramp up time here. We had to. We were
Speaker 1: on a tight schedule. This is a movie that needed
Speaker 1: a sixty day budget that we did in forty nine days. Uh.
Speaker 1: That that's you know, everybody, unless your name is Spielder,
Speaker 1: every everybody has that problem if you don't have enough
Speaker 1: shooting days. Um. But Uh, we began we with the
Speaker 1: scenes between Jessica and Address uh in his office. Those
Speaker 1: are seven eight nine page scenes of dance dialogue. Uh.
Speaker 1: And while they were shot fairly conventionally, I don't mean boringly,
Speaker 1: they look beautiful, They're lit beautifully, and uh, really, Charlotta
Speaker 1: is a superstar. Um, she's very underrated. I feel that
Speaker 1: Far from the Medda Crowd was amazing. Yeah, I agreed,
Speaker 1: the Far from the Maddening Crowd was amazing. But I
Speaker 1: don't think she's underrated. I just think that she is
Speaker 1: not yet as known as she will be. I think
Speaker 1: this movie is gonna change that. Um. I think that
Speaker 1: people are gonna see it and say, WHOA who shot that?
Speaker 1: Because it deserves that that kind of reaction. Um. But Uh. Two,
Speaker 1: that there was insufficient rehearsal time for those scenes between
Speaker 1: Jessica and Uh and indress. So I instituted about six
Speaker 1: weeks before photography started, virtual rehearsals, Skype, email phone calls.
Speaker 1: We would talk through every beat, every transition, and I
Speaker 1: would emphasize to them that you can't learn this in
Speaker 1: the makeup trailer on the morning. Uh, it's you're you're
Speaker 1: never gonna make it and you're gonna be very unhappy
Speaker 1: with your performance. That you can't just memorize the words.
Speaker 1: You've got to take ownership of this language. You have
Speaker 1: to be able to casualize the language. You have to
Speaker 1: be able to toss it off like it's your phone number, UM,
Speaker 1: and that way, uh, because you won't have to think
Speaker 1: about the words anymore. You get the performances. You get
Speaker 1: what you hire Jessica and address for uh. And had
Speaker 1: the two of them not come as prepared as they did,
Speaker 1: had the two of them been a half inch less talented,
Speaker 1: uh than they are, less skilled than they are, than
Speaker 1: less committed than they are, the movie would have fallen
Speaker 1: off the screen. But instead, Uh, I think that those
Speaker 1: scenes are explosive. You were talking briefly about just, you know,
Speaker 1: some of the ideas you had for the looks early
Speaker 1: in the movie, later in the movie. That brings me
Speaker 1: to a question I have, which were which is what
Speaker 1: were some of those visual ideas you had to tell
Speaker 1: the story visually. What kind of struck you early on?
Speaker 1: Even that carried all the way through. Well, the main
Speaker 1: idea was that they were going to be uh, two
Speaker 1: different looks. That in present day, as I said, we're
Speaker 1: gonna shoot it fairly conventionally, or a better word would
Speaker 1: be literally. Uh, it was all going to be literal,
Speaker 1: but that in the past it was gonna look different.
Speaker 1: We were gonna poker. And I'm not a poker player,
Speaker 1: but I'm a sports fan, so my TV is on ESPN,
Speaker 1: and every once in a while, when there is absolutely
Speaker 1: no other sporting event happening in the world, they will
Speaker 1: show poker on ESPN. You can't imagine a worst spectator sport. Okay,
Speaker 1: it's it's boring to watch, it's ugly to look at. Uh,
Speaker 1: there's there's nothing there. And I again, I never saw
Speaker 1: this as a poker movie. Um there. I didn't write
Speaker 1: a single scene in the script where we're ever asked
Speaker 1: to care who wins or loses a hand of poker.
Speaker 1: In fact, there's only one scene in which a full
Speaker 1: hand of poker is traumatized, scene in which Bill Camp
Speaker 1: playing Harlan Eustace goes on what's called full tilt, which
Speaker 1: means I know it will Okay, I'm sorry to hear that.
Speaker 1: It means you're on a losing streak, you've lost your mind.
Speaker 1: Uh uh, you should get up and walk away from
Speaker 1: the table. But there's no turning back here. You're going.
Speaker 1: You're like Chevy Chase in Vegas vacation, going back to
Speaker 1: the uh the a T M machine to play the
Speaker 1: guy and I forgot who played the black jack. I
Speaker 1: can't reference Vegas vacations with the expertise that that you can. Um,
Speaker 1: but it's uh more like uh a coke addict at
Speaker 1: four in the morning looking for anyone who's got more
Speaker 1: cob Okay. Um, that's the only scene uh where we're
Speaker 1: watching your hand, And again we're not caring who wins
Speaker 1: or loses. We're listening to Molly demonstrate. Here's how someone
Speaker 1: goes on full tilt. Okay, here's how it happens. Here's
Speaker 1: the origin of it. But in all other cases, it's
Speaker 1: just the the energy of playing poker. And we're watching
Speaker 1: Molly learn it. She she's a spun she's a computer.
Speaker 1: Uh that way here learns incredibly fast and then extrapolates
Speaker 1: and uh so the shooting style there would be we're
Speaker 1: gonna get We're gonna spend days around these poker tables,
Speaker 1: getting what I would call micro shots, uh, shards of things,
Speaker 1: of chips being slapped down, cards being turned over, a shuffled,
Speaker 1: a new deck being cut open, ice going into a
Speaker 1: glass of cigarette being lit, more cash, more buying, somebody
Speaker 1: pulling in uh chips, cards, cards, cards, poker, poker poker.
Speaker 1: We're gonna get hundreds and hundreds of these shots. And
Speaker 1: in post, the editors and I are gonna build these
Speaker 1: poker scenes, um, and they'll they'll be very exciting. Uh.
Speaker 1: Same with skiing. We're never gonna see somebody's ski from
Speaker 1: the top of the slope to the bottom of the slope.
Speaker 1: That doesn't matter. Uh, We're gonna get in there tight.
Speaker 1: I want to see ice coming off of of the
Speaker 1: edges of skis. I want to see a hand gripping
Speaker 1: the polls, that kind of thing. Sound is crucial with
Speaker 1: all of this too. Then in post, I'm really glad
Speaker 1: you brought that up because sound I've been singing this
Speaker 1: him for years of how crucial sound is. I cannot, unfortunately,
Speaker 1: go to every movie theater in America UM and test
Speaker 1: their sound system, uh, and decide whether or not it's
Speaker 1: fit to uh you know, to to play movies. So
Speaker 1: you're a little bit at the mercy of of the
Speaker 1: delivery system for the movie. However, the sound design on
Speaker 1: this um, just as you know in in every Scorsese movie, UM,
Speaker 1: he kind of makes the decision early on. We know
Speaker 1: with the help of his sound guys. Uh, what a
Speaker 1: gun is gonna sound like in that particular movie. Um,
Speaker 1: And what it's gonna sound like when a bullet pierces
Speaker 1: a body. It's different in every movie. If you remember,
Speaker 1: in The Departed, it was a very distinct sound that
Speaker 1: the bullet had. Everyone who gets shot in that movie
Speaker 1: gets shot in the head. Um uh, and there's a
Speaker 1: blast flat whether. Yeah, by the way, these are all
Speaker 1: It's one of my all time favorite movies. But there
Speaker 1: is a different sound to a gun and every assessing movie.
Speaker 1: Well in this movie. Uh, what was important to me
Speaker 1: is what a chip sound like when they're slacked down? Um,
Speaker 1: or when someone shuffling them? What are cards are sound like?
Speaker 1: What does that ice sound like when it's spreading off
Speaker 1: the edge of a ski? Uh? All all those sounds,
Speaker 1: how heightened can they be? How heightened can the clinking
Speaker 1: of ice and a glass be? Um? Uh? You know
Speaker 1: what does it sound like when a judge drops a
Speaker 1: stack of documents on a desk in a big echoque courtroom?
Speaker 1: That kind of thing. Our whole sound team, from the
Speaker 1: sound engineers UH engineer in Toronto recording the production track
Speaker 1: to the sound designers here at home. The mixers UH
Speaker 1: are the editors we're so into this, uh, and worked
Speaker 1: so hard from before sunrise after sunset. Um though exact
Speaker 1: things um uh, particularly when I would give them a
Speaker 1: note like, uh, you know the blade of the ice,
Speaker 1: skate on the ice. This it's just a better sound available.
Speaker 1: That's there's there's a really great sound, and I just
Speaker 1: want to find it. Uh. They would take that as
Speaker 1: a personal challenge um uh, and they wouldn't go home until,
Speaker 1: you know, they had built that that sound. I since
Speaker 1: we're talking about post production, I have to mention that
Speaker 1: our editors Alan baum Garden, Josh Shaffer and and Elliot Graham,
Speaker 1: along with Charlotta r DP, I consider those people to
Speaker 1: be co authors of of this movie. Um. That listen,
Speaker 1: the structure, the the you know, the the cutting that
Speaker 1: we do in the movie was something written in the
Speaker 1: script that's all built in. They found something else to uh.
Speaker 1: They they found something new that I hadn't thought of,
Speaker 1: and you know, that's the best thing that there is.
Speaker 1: You don't want uh Earliest. I don't want people who
Speaker 1: will expertly follow by instructions. UM. I want people who
Speaker 1: have better ideas than than my instructions. Look, of course,
Speaker 1: sometimes you want what you want. Yeah, you want you
Speaker 1: what you want, um, and they'll show you their better
Speaker 1: idea and you will disagree that that it was a
Speaker 1: better idea. So you want what you want. Um. But uh,
Speaker 1: you want what they have and you don't. Okay. Um,
Speaker 1: you want the ears that the sound designers have. You
Speaker 1: want the sense of rhythm and the understanding of what
Speaker 1: can be done and an avid uh that the editors have.
Speaker 1: You want Charlotta's I and what she understands about lenses
Speaker 1: and lighting. Um. And it's about time I got around
Speaker 1: to this. You want what Jessica Chastain and Address Elva
Speaker 1: and uh and Kevin Costner have. UM. Uh. Yes, you
Speaker 1: are going to give them adjustments. Uh. You're hotter, colder, faster, slower,
Speaker 1: louder software. Uh. You're giving them reasons for those things too.
Speaker 1: You're not just controlling knobs on a console. But what
Speaker 1: you want to do, UH is you want what makes
Speaker 1: Jessica Jessica uh to be in the room. You don't
Speaker 1: just want her following your instructions. She's not just a
Speaker 1: delivery system uh for the script that you wrote. Same
Speaker 1: thing with the interests, same thing with Kevin. And by
Speaker 1: the way, the whole supporting cast from Bill Camp to
Speaker 1: Bristo Dowd, Jeremy's Strong Michael Sarah, I'm sure I'm leaving
Speaker 1: some people out. Um uh so as it happened, Uh,
Speaker 1: luckily enough, and my my biggest fear other than not
Speaker 1: understanding the science of filmmaking. When I on January three
Speaker 1: said yes I'll direct, this was what quality of person
Speaker 1: am I going to be able to get? Who's willing
Speaker 1: to work with a first time director? Can I cast?
Speaker 1: This is Jessica Chastain who works with Terrence Malick and
Speaker 1: really Scott and uh, Katherine Bigelow and Chris Nolan? Is
Speaker 1: she gonna be willing to do this? Is interests? Um? Uh? Is? What?
Speaker 1: What kind to the DP am I gonna have? What
Speaker 1: kind of crew am I gonna have? Um? Well, as
Speaker 1: it turned out, African All Star Team, you sounds super grateful,
Speaker 1: frankly like you sound like it's an unrepayable debt. I uh,
Speaker 1: it's an unrepayable debt. Yeah, I'm getting the rapid up
Speaker 1: symbol signal. I know that's okay, But I'm just gonna
Speaker 1: slip in one personal curiosity question before we duck out.
Speaker 1: Uh few good men? Is twenty five years old this
Speaker 1: year the film Anyway. Uh. And it struck me when
Speaker 1: I was preparing for this that a big part of
Speaker 1: your life appears to have been the law. Your father
Speaker 1: was a lawyer after fighting in World War Two. Believe
Speaker 1: you're siblings. Two of your siblings lawyers, and you married
Speaker 1: a lawyer eventually, So you're you're working on your own
Speaker 1: adaptation of to Kill a mockingbird? So what's that all about?
Speaker 1: Let me just PLoP you on the couch at the
Speaker 1: end here. Sure, well, part of it is growing up
Speaker 1: with lawyers, part of his growing up loving courtroom dramas,
Speaker 1: uh and um. And part of it is just an
Speaker 1: old fashioned romantic sense of you know what the laws mean,
Speaker 1: and what having the country a nation of laws mean.
Speaker 1: Uh and uh. It's it's really a marvel But our
Speaker 1: system of justices, in terms of writing those kinds of
Speaker 1: things like A Few Good Men. Courtroom dramas for me
Speaker 1: are are so great because the stakes are immediately clear,
Speaker 1: the intention and obstacle is immediately clear, the battlefield is clear,
Speaker 1: the jury is a stand in for the audience. You've
Speaker 1: got twelve people who know as little as the audience does.
Speaker 1: Uh and they're going to have to be informed. So
Speaker 1: you you you're not gonna have clumsy exposition. Exposition makes
Speaker 1: sense there, it's just a clear score board. Uh. And um,
Speaker 1: I'm most comfortable as a writer when I'm inside four walls.
Speaker 1: I'm I'm very uncomfortable out on a battlefield, um, in
Speaker 1: a desert, in the jungle, uh, that kind of thing,
Speaker 1: in a car chase. I just I need those four
Speaker 1: walls to uh to feel comfortable. How how's that upcoming
Speaker 1: live rendition of that? How are you feeling about that? Well,
Speaker 1: I'm feeling great about it. You know, we're probably going
Speaker 1: to we're gonna do it this May, but we're probably
Speaker 1: going to postpone it a little bit, uh until next season.
Speaker 1: I don't want to say for sure, Uh because of
Speaker 1: of scheduling. You there are great actors uh who who
Speaker 1: want to do it. Um, it's just hard getting them
Speaker 1: all to be available at the same time, getting those
Speaker 1: uh stars literally to line up. Uh. So we may
Speaker 1: push it to the next season. Okay, Well, I'm looking
Speaker 1: forward to that. I appreciate Chris. The movie Is Molly's
Speaker 1: Game comes out December twenty two. Go see it. I
Speaker 1: loved it. By the way. I never got a chance
Speaker 1: to ry on that. And Aaron Sorkin, thanks for coming
Speaker 1: on the show. Really appreciate it. Thanks for having me. Thanks.
Speaker 1: I'm Molly Blue. Do you know about me? This is
Speaker 1: a true story. You ranning games in l A for
Speaker 1: roughly eight years. Yeah, you ran games in New York
Speaker 1: for us. I ever run a game in over two years.
Speaker 1: Not to spoil the ending, because that's when the government
Speaker 1: rated my game and took all of my money, assuming
Speaker 1: all of it was made illegally, which it wasn't. In
Speaker 1: this room, you couldn't buy your win, Tom, you couldn't
Speaker 1: buy me, and you couldn't buy a seat at the table.
Speaker 1: We saw an athlete. That's just the tip of the iceberg. Personally,
Speaker 1: the pod keep it that way because you don't want
Speaker 1: to break below. When you're breaking the law? Am I
Speaker 1: breaking the law? We're able to find out for sure,
Speaker 1: aren't we. Flaws are written down whatever yea means in
Speaker 1: l A. About your book in Life, right, I did
Speaker 1: you spend eight years spinning the world's most exclusive, glamorous
Speaker 1: and decadent man cave from the office Barren's even publishers.
Speaker 1: Certain elements that I can get to a million and
Speaker 1: a half. What kind of elements I passed? I'm just
Speaker 1: curious as to why you passed on what would appear
Speaker 1: to be the only way out you have. You have
Speaker 1: to use real names, creative differences for a while that
Speaker 1: I'm choose to breaking the plans. Gambling is bidding on
Speaker 1: games of chance, Yes, Booker isn't a game of chance,
Speaker 1: Bokers a game of skill? Why does your young woman,
Speaker 1: who at twenty two has a goal planard resume? Why
Speaker 1: do you run four games? Your risk is nuts, you're
Speaker 1: gonna get You get two point eight billion on street
Speaker 1: right now? That money should be in your hands. Just
Speaker 1: how deep into the Russian mob where you be? There's
Speaker 1: a new offer on a table? Can completely really hand
Speaker 1: over the hard drave You've seen what's on this hard drives?
Speaker 1: Family lives, careers will be ruling. Why are you in
Speaker 1: this alone? When are the people you're protected by not
Speaker 1: telling the whole story. It's not their names I'm protecting, Charlie.
Speaker 1: It's it's all I have left because it's my thing