AARON SORKIN Master Class | Festival 2017

good morning Toronto yeah I my name is Kathleen drum and I'm tips industry director and it's my absolute pleasure to welcome you to the 2017 TIF industry conference it's great to to know that not just local filmmakers but people from around the world are here today for the start of the six day event you are also very very welcome we are here today in the dynamic and culturally diverse City of Toronto it's a city of immigrants and more than 50% of the population were born in another country it's also a city with a long history stretching back over time many lives have been lived and many stories have come from this place it's an honor for me to pay my respects to the original keepers of this land the Mississauga's of new credit the Haudenosaunee and the huron win debt thank you for hosting us here today and for hosting two year round I would also like to acknowledge our wonderful sponsors and supporters who make everything that TIFF does possible our lead sponsor Belle our major sponsors are BC L'Oreal Paris and Visa and our major industry supporters the Ontario Media Development Corporation and telefilm Canada which is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year happy birthday telephone right now there are three three worlds orbiting the downtown hub of Toronto there's the world of imagination and artistry at the Toronto International Film Festival the world of business and media at the industry centre and the world of creative and professional inspiration right here at the Glen Gould Centre today we begin six days packed with topical provocative important conversations our hard-working programming team has assembled a lineup of industry Titans acclaimed filmmakers expert practitioners disruptors innovators and cinema legends lately and closed Larry Wilmore Armando Iannucci and bong joon-ho it's going to be informative and it's going to be fun we know that you're here to learn and be inspired and we know that you're also here to further your projects and make new business connections so please make use of tips three intersecting worlds to build your networks go to parties hang out and the fifth and Festival streets cafes and bars and come along to our daily happy hours which happen every night at 5:30 right and the lobby outside we'd love you to go home with new friends and new contacts and just a quick housekeeping note please no photography or video recording is allowed inside the studio however not to worry because we are live-streaming the conference to our website website and YouTube channel and please do tweet about our sessions and keep the conversation going with our online audience this morning's guest speaker once said the worst crime you can commit with an audience is telling them something they already know we are always running ahead we couldn't be more excited to open the conference with a uniquely fast-paced exceptional and entertaining screenwriter who was active with his directorial debut I'd now like to invite my wonderful creative collaborator and our industry conference programmer Karina wrote enstein who has the honor of welcoming the man himself good morning everyone Thank You Kathleen to all of you tuning in in our live stream and all of you in this room and there are a lot of you you are exactly in the right place we are so excited to welcome Aaron Sorkin to the venue welcome him [Applause] whether it's theater film television the Academy award-winning screenwriter producer playwright showrunner and he's the mild Davis of dialogue Aaron Sorkin has built a career authoring some of the most influential and original works of our time including but not limited to a few good men the American president sports night The West Wing Charlie Wilson's War the social network of those Finkle by the newsroom Moneyball and Steve Jobs his pen has been in everything Aaron Sorkin returns to tiff to present the world premiere of his directorial debut Molly's game which he also wrote starring Jessica Chastain and Idris Elba it's premiering tonight at 6 p.m. at the Elgin theatre and let's just take a quick sneak peek if we can you yeah hosting this morning's masterclass is Carrie Craddock the festival's Director of Programming and our resident or sorkin expert so without further ado please join me in welcoming our guests as they walk and talk to the stage the wonderful Carrie Craddock and Aaron Sorkin [Applause] I think we need more practice on our walk-and-talk for next time good morning everybody so that was Molly's game I hope you'll all get a chance to see the film during the festival or when it's released in theaters this November but as a storyteller Aaron I'd like to start by asking you what is the first story you remember hearing or reading or the first one that inspired you to start writing first of all that's a great question I've ever been asked that question I'll tell you the first time I remember being in a theatre was actually I was backstage I grew up in New York City and classmate of mine was the I was about four years old at the time and it was the son of an actor named Herschel Bernardi who took over from Zero Mostel and fiddler on the roof on Broadway and one Sunday afternoon we had a play date and my friend had siblings who were my brothers and sisters age two and I don't remember much but there weren't any parents around just the nanny and the nanny had to kind of Park us somewhere and she put us backstage at the Imperial Theatre on a Sunday afternoon during a matinee so when all the other kids went off to play someplace but I was mesmerised I was standing backstage watching some guy sing miracle of miracles in profile I couldn't see the audience I couldn't quite understand what I was looking at but I found it thrilling and then that experienced that wasn't so much a story experience as I love being a backstage and a theater experience story experience would come soon after that when my parents who took me to the theater as a matter of habit not other of them are in show business but when they were growing up and if theater was kind of a portable back then you could you know get a seat in the balcony for $3.50 they so they would take my sister and brother and I to the theatres as a matter of habit and they took us to see Man of La Mancha and it was the original production of Man of La Mancha and I can really remember it very clearly seeing the top of a bassoon coming out of the orchestra pit there are live musicians down there and then if any of you are familiar with Man of La Mancha it has the scariest staircase in in the history of storytelling if the whole thing takes place in a dungeon where the Spanish Inquisition is keeping people who are about to be executed and when that staircase lowers on chains it meant somebody was coming to be taken and I remember that staircase coming down and I remember every single thing about that show and it it has had a very long-lasting effect on me what was the first story you ever wrote you know I never wrote for pleasure until right after I got out of college until then writing for me was a chore to be gotten through for a school assignment I won I got I got out of college where I'd studied theater I moved to New York to begin my life as a as a struggling actor which is what I thought I was I'd studied acting my whole life I was working a whole bunch of survival jobs I was bussing tables bartending handing out leaflets dressed as a moose anything to pay the rent and pay the phone bill in my rent at the time was I was sharing a very tiny studio apartment about the third this of the size of this stage I was sharing this very tiny studio apartment with my ex-girlfriend and I don't mean that she's now my ex-girlfriend she's my ex-girlfriend then when I was living with her and she was dating my best friend but these are the kind of things that you just have to not care about when you're trying to you know get your foot in the door and in a very expensive city so for $250 a month I got to live on her futon I and yeah I'll say one weekend she was out of town doing that she played strawberry shortcake in the Strawberry Shortcake tour this is a character I don't I don't know a strawberry shortcake who exists anymore maybe parents with vive a teenage daughter marry parent maybe parents with very little kids would know but back she is she yep alright so my ex-girlfriend went out on the Strawberry Shortcake tour I this was a Friday night in New York that anyone who lives in a big city whether it's New York Toronto or anyplace else you've had this night it feels like everyone you know has been invited to a party that you haven't been invited to everyone's gone for some reason nothing in the in this little studio apartment that worked on electricity was working like the television wasn't working the stereo wasn't working this was about a year or about a year before Apple introduced this thing called a Macintosh so there wasn't one of those but what there was was a high school friend of mine who was a struggling journalist had on that Friday with him his grandfather's semi-automatic typewriter this is a typewriter with electric keys but a manual return he was going out of town for the weekend with his girlfriend I didn't want to slap it around with him so he asked me if I could hang on to this typewriter for him so I said sure so I'm in the studio apartment no friends around the TV isn't working the stereo isn't working there's no such thing as the internet for this story to really work I guess I had to have to say there's no such thing as ebooks yet either though those hadn't been invented but and I didn't have three dollars in my pocket what I had was my friend's grandfather's semi-automatic typewriter which also had paper in it so the only way for me to entertain myself was to stick a piece of paper in this typewriter and I did what I'd never done before which was that I wrote in dialogue and and I started writing and dialogue and I stayed up all night writing it was that was the moment that I fell in love with the sound of my own voice and started writing all night and felt the confidence doing it that I'd actually never felt with acting even though I was a pretty cocky actor and [Music] but you know that morning invited a couple of friends over and you know said you know read this out loud for me and they were there very encouraging about it and that's the first story I ever wrote it's interesting that one of your you know your first memories of seeing a player hearing a story as you put it was from backstage okay it seems to me that a lot of your work you tend to be drawn to behind the scenes stories can you talk a little bit about you know why those interest you so much or what draws you to them sure I I think it's the that's the same thing that makes us want to know how a magic trick is done I always for instance with with the West Wing I I would say to the people I was working with you know this is a show about the five minutes before and after what we see on on CNN and and I and I think that that you're right that being four years old standing backstage at the Imperial theater and being fascinated by that made me want to write about those things look everything to some extent everything is a behind the scenes story whether it's behind the scenes at a hospital behind the scenes with a law firm behind the scenes at a police precinct behind the scenes you know of a family we know one if you're doing a kitchen sink drama everything is is meant to be the part that we don't see in the store window I just choose workplaces that have a kind of more pronounced facade so it it brings into relief the behind the scenes aspect so you mentioned being an actor before you discovered your talent for writing but in another life would you have been maybe a journalist a politician a lawyer or any of the sort of stories that and worlds that you create on screen ones that you feel like you would be drawn to working in or not at all well in a world where we get multiple lives and can start over and over to be honest I think I do this in every one of them I love doing and thanks I'm attracted to those professions that you just named and I guess that my way of feeling like a journalist feeling like a lawyer a feeling like a politician is by writing about them and writing you know the the newsroom or the law firm or the White House that you know I tend to write very romantically an idealistic Lee the quixotic version of those things well I wish that some of those real life characters were more idealistic and romantic as you are so we talked about you know your influence or the influence of the theater on your work and I'm wondering if you can maybe talk a little bit about your first movie that you wrote a few good men and since that was based on a play you wrote and the process of adapting that you know from the stage to the screen and just a little bit about you know what went into that well when the the the film rights for a few good men were were bought pretty quickly and I I was hired to write the screenplay and at the time that I was hired to write the screenplay not only had I never written a screenplay I'd never read a screenplay I honestly didn't know what one looked like her exactly how how it worked I loved movies as much as anyone I went to movies as much as anyone but whereas my friends who do what I do can tell you who the second assistant director was on every Hitchcock film and really can talk with great sophistication about films that I love I'm I'm not able to do that and and was never able to do that I'm only able to tell you that I love those films and I'm at this point I'm able to talk about the screenplays a little bit in a way that makes sense I was that way with plays I can tell you who the second assistant stage manager was on you know the original production of Golden Boy and that kind of thing so the first thing I did in order to write this screenplay was I went to this place called the drama book shop in New York on on 7th Avenue and I found a scream screenplay formatting book a book that teaches you teaches you screenplay format and after about three days I threw it out the window because I just thought this this can't be right I and again this is before now their screenwriting software like final draft which is a screenplay is is very format in intensive and there wasn't that soft software what there was was a man who was already I had never met him he was already my mentor and then would become my actual mentor right around this time a screenwriter named William Goldman bill Goldman who won Academy Awards for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and all the President's Men and wrote Marathon Man and The Princess Bride and misery and the list goes on and on and my generation of consists of screenwriters considers him to be the Dean of of American screenwriters and I bought his book which I would recommend to anybody whether you're a screenwriter or short-order cook it's such a good read it's called adventures on the screen trade and you won't put it down you'll read it in the night and included in adventures in the screen trade is his screenplay for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid which was not at all like what I had seen in the screenplay formatting book it was an incredibly readable screenplay whereas and I also in addition to the screenplay book the the producers of the movie in the studio knowing this was my first screenplay they sent me a bunch of screenplays that were current at the time I remember they they sent me Rain Man and a few others and I saw that you know a lot of screenplays and I recognized that that a screenwriter a playwright a television writer that we don't write things that are meant to be read we write things that are meant to be performed right so it's however the screenplays that I was reading other than Bill's other than Butch Cassidy felt more like a blueprint like a set of instructions for for the making of a movie bill wanted you to have the movie experience while writing other screenplay so he did away with unnecessary stuff like cut - for instance I'll only use cut - if rhythmically you want that feet there to get tooth if that's what you want the audience to feel so I when I now when I'm writing the screenplay I want whoever is reading it at the studio a director an actor I want to come as close to the experience that you're gonna feel in the theater as possible I want I want to put that on the page but with a few good men with my first eye I didn't know how to do any of that yet and like I clung to sort of the bill Goldman version of of writing the screenplay I you know people would say they would seen the play and then said to me okay how are you gonna open it up how are you gonna open it up and why I had no answer except I don't know exactly what you mean and I don't think I am gonna open it up it most takes place like most of the things I write in offices in a courtroom I really like four walls I like a little puppy that you buy a crate for where it's supposed to be only big enough for the puppy to be able to turn around and no more because it makes them feel secure I'm gonna get off this or that I'm not comfortable comparing myself to a cute puppy but I wrote it that way and and now I read everything that way so and and to this day by the way we'll get the same of Jackson's you know Jesus with Steve Jobs are for instance Steve Jobs opened two years ago next month but if you go right now you can still be among the first to see it Steve Jobs takes place entirely endorse an entirely in one building and and I was perfectly comfortable with that in spite of the My gods what do you and moreover Danny Boyle the director was perfectly comfortable with that so well and then I mean in that particular phone I think in the two cases I think where you do open it up it has such I think a bigger impact you know for that for that reason that you sure contain the whole time speaking of Danny Boyle and you know Rob Reiner and other directors that you've worked with at what point do you involve them in the process for stuff that you're not directing or the actors okay well I everything has been stuff that I didn't direct up until them now yes I they I want that I want the director to come in III want the screenplay to be as as finished as it can be before the director comes in I want it to be as good as it can be before anybody sees it I I want the reaction to be let's make this movie now let's attach the director let's start casting it now all end up doing work I think David Fincher is a good example with with the social network that you know that became a greenlit movie are right away Fincher was on board right away he would come to my house or I would go to his office and we would do what's just called turning pages I would go from page to page just make sure that we were metaphorically both on the same page and he would suggest a small changes and he would make it clear that it's a suggestion that he's not telling me to do this but it would be a David Fincher a suggestion which is to say I'll beat you up if so that I I like involving the director in the process when at the time when they can be the director and not the script editor and you know not a co-author right and can you talk a little bit about how your process differs when you're writing for television versus feature films I think there's a quote from Bradley Whitford that says something like nobody will ever do what you did again which was write 22 episodes a year for the West Wing for four years in a row that's something like eleven movies a year or something like that yeah it's a lot I will say this though the the generation before me they were doing 36 Gilligan's Islands a year and they were able to maintain that level of quality week-to-week okay it was the difference between writing for television and and writing movies and I love them both and I love writing plays and I'm very lucky that I get to do all three but the difference in television is time if I'm working on a screenplay and I've run into trouble I've driven myself into a snowbank I'm lost it's not working I have writer's block I can call the studio call the producer call whoever it is that's waiting for it and say I know I said I was gonna deliver in August it's probably gonna be more like October or November and they may not be happy about it but that's the way it's gonna be in that and as a matter of fact they're generally generally understanding with a an episode of television you have a concrete deadline you have an air date that you have to meet and as a result and this is the big downside of television you have to write even when you're not writing well with that screenplay that I said was gonna I was going to deliver in August but it won't be until October in November the reason for that is I'm writing badly and I have to put it down and stop because I'm writing badly and with the episode of television you can't stop you have to write even though you're writing badly and then you have to put it on the table for the cast and the crew so you can have a table read and then you have to point a camera at it and then you have to broadcast it to everybody every week even though you know that you've struggled with this and that it's not your best and that's a tough pill to swallow how do you know one year when you have it when something's great and you mentioned writer's block and that actually brings me to one of my other questions for all those screenwriters or aspiring screenwriters in the room what do you do to cure it well for about ten years I was a drug addict and I'm I'm here to tell me I can joke about it now but I'm here to tell you that if they anyone thinks my I went to I've 18 years clean now before I I went to a great place in Minnesota called the Hazelden Senran and got clean there and before I went I got a call from someone I've never met before I've never spoken to before Carrie Fisher who called me out of the blue to say I know you think that you're not gonna be able to write as well without drugs I promise you you're gonna write better and turns out she was a hundred percent right I so that that's the wrong thing to do about writer's block for me it's just time doing its thing you know I first of all again I stopped I if if it's um if I'm flying along if I'm if I'm basically if the only thing holding me back is the speed at which I type then it's going well if it's coming out like ketchup out of a bottle it's not okay it means that it means you haven't nailed down the intention and the obstacle and the scene those are the things that you need that point of friction somebody wants something something standing in their way of getting it they want the money they want the girl they want to get to Philadelphia they want to open a bottle of ketchup it it doesn't matter as long as there is a formidable obstacle in their way and the tactics that they use to overcome that obstacle that's gonna be your characters if so like I said if it is coming out like molasses you you don't have it and you shouldn't sit there trying to think of the next line get up get in your car drive this is what I do I Drive around I listen to music I climb the walls a sports fan i watch sports i it writer's block is not a condition that lasts forever it only feels like it it's gonna last when Kareena introduced us she described you as the Miles Davis of dialog I understand that you like to really like yeah I understand you like to listen to music a lot while you're writing and that you're very physical about maybe like acting out some of the parts while you write can you talk a little bit about sure I don't listen to music while I'm actually writing I listen to music which is said I don't listen to music while I'm typing but I do for some reason my car is the place that I listen to music I I rarely have music on and in my house and I listen to music that I listen to when I was in high school because my taste in almost everything music food just stopped maturing the moment I graduated from Verizon so I listen to that music and it kind of puts me I don't know it puts me in a place sometimes I'll just say hey that that's a piece of music that I would really like to have serve as score for a scene that I haven't written so write a scene that that can where you can end with you know dire straits brothers-in-arms i back i write write that scene so it'll work a little bit that way yes I am very physical when I'm writing I play all the parts I'm I'm doing a lot of talking out loud if it's going well I'm jumping up and down from my desk walking around I once broke my nose writing because it was it was late at night I had gone to bed but I got up because this is during the newsroom I got up cuz I thought of something I got unstuck with with something good so I was kind of sleeping I jotted a note down and I thought that that note isn't good enough and I went into the little office I keep it home and wrote a sort of longer note to myself in email and that note turned into dialog and it was it was a simple comic beat that we've actually seen a thousand times before but it's durable it Jeff Daniels is about to lose his mind just go crazy at something that a staffer did and he he lunges at the Stafford and other staffer holds him back and it's one of these I you know a kind of moments so I was performing it I was doing it and I I did the Jeff Daniels lunge and I was in there's a little bathroom in my little home office and I was in there walking around but I happened to be in there at the moment that I did it and I did the lunge and I there was nobody to hold me back so I slammed right into the mirror really hard if it had been a Scorsese movie yeah he would have said I good let's go again but this time less blood [Music] it was my nose was swelling up it was blood everywhere it was clear there was problems so I called the friend that you call it midnight when you've accidentally broken who knows writing yeah and she came over and looked at me and said I got to take you to the emergency room I said yeah okay but just do me a favor read the scene because I I think I nailed I'd like to talk a little bit now about Molly's game as you mentioned this is the first film you've directed and written so how did it come to be and how do you always wanted to direct a film and why this one I think I was all we could afford listen I've known for I I started working on Molly's game three years ago took me a little over a year to write the screenplay so I've known for about two years that I was going to need a succinct brief coherent answer to that question and I still don't have one I'll say this that's not my but I don't even have a phone off I didn't write the screenplay with the intention of directing it it was but from the moment I started thinking about Molly's game which was the moment I met Molly Molly gloom I I knew this that I'm sorry I'm trying to find a way to say this without it appearing as if I'm calling other people dumber than myself I knew this I knew that there were dozens and dozens of very attractive ways to do Molly's game I don't want to say wrong but differently okay there were a lot of shiny objects in in Molly's game the money the glamour the movie stars the sexiness the decadence there were and and that wasn't the movie that I was seeing those things would all sort of be background extras in this movie but talking to Molly and after that first meeting with Maya that turned into six months of almost everyday talking to Molly and hearing the differences between what she wrote in the book and what really happened or what was left out of the book entirely listening to stories about Molly and her family in particularly Molly and her father these this won't mean very much to you without having seen the film none of which is in the book there was a movie that I wanted to write which was not the movie you would sort of instantly think that this was if you hear the one-line story of a young woman hosts a lists stars in an underground poker game and I just became very protective of of that idea and I'm listen the reason why I'm talking like this is because I love working with great directors I love the relationships the both personal but but professional creative relationships that I've had with David Fincher and with Danny Boyle Mike Nichols Bennett Miller and I want to continue doing that and I've always frankly I've I've cringed just a little bit whenever I've heard a screenwriter say well you know I decided to direct myself to protect my screenplay protect it from whom and um I don't want my screenplay protected from Mike Nichols I I've come in and yeah and do it with me uh tell me how to make it better and I'll go do that and the movie will be better and I'll have had this incredible experience with Mike Nichols I learned from Mike and same with all the others so but in this particular case I just felt very strongly about the tone of the film of what was important in this story of the fact that it wasn't a poker movie that there would be poker in it uh just like there would be wallpaper in certain scenes and but even then I didn't go to the producers and say I want to direct the movie they came to me and they it was one night we had met at a restaurant for dinner we all had in front of us a piece of paper with a list of directors on it who went through each name each director unnamed by name pros and cons and when we got to the end mark Gordon Anna Pascal Matt Jackson the producers said but we think you should direct it and I it was a scary proposition to be sure but and even though it took me weeks to say yes definitively I knew the moment they suggested it that I was gonna say yes that I was gonna do it it was gonna take me a while to get comfortable with it it was going to take me a while to I went and started talking to all the writers turned directors that that I knew Jim Brooks and Adam McKay and a whole bunch of people all of whom were incredibly Korean couraging saying you think you're not ready you are I would explain to them you know in twenty-five years I've managed to pick up none of the science of filmmaking I couldn't pick a long lens out of police lineup if I have to I know I like the way it looks when you use a long lens and they said yeah you're not gonna have to worry about that and sure enough while given the education that I got directing Molly's game I would love a chance to direct it all over again but you know I had this conversation with charlotta Christensen who was our director of photography well you know what I met with her she came heavily recommended she had just shot girl on a train she just shot fences far from the maddening crowd and I met with her and said you know listen I'm you know basically what I just told you that I don't know anything about the science of filmmaking and that we would have to establish some kind of vocabulary where we can talk to each other and you will have to have Herculean patience with me it's not gonna be a problem at all there's this handheld thing and if I think it'll look good with a 60 I'll slap a 60 on a can see you can look right at the scene and just tell me if you like it really you talked about really getting to know Molly bloom throughout this process and and wanting to stay sort of true to the parts of her story that weren't necessarily in her book how did your collaboration with Jessica Chastain work and and what was the process like of casting her and you know working with her and Molly together I love Jessica I I loved her before we did this movie I even though I'd never met Ashley I think I shook hands with her once I mean I don't know why I said it like that I know I shook hands with her once I just don't think she remembers and Jessica is who I wanted from the beginning she was absolutely my first choice for a wide variety of reasons what became particularly important was once you've gotten past yes you have cast the right actor in in this part if you and if you cast the but if somebody once said that casting is 90% of the battle I think whoever said that it was dramatically under estimating the importance of of casting i if if you cast something wrong you will spend the rest of your time the rest of the rehearsal of the play the rest of the making of the movie the rest of the life of the television series you will spend the rest of your time dealing with the fact that you have cast that part incorrectly it's not at all the actors fault other terrific actor who worked hard you casted wrong Jessica was cast beautifully I'm I was super smart to make that decision I really can't give myself enough credit but here's what became very important like every movie we didn't have as much money as we needed to make a movie okay there the nobody was being cheap or anything it's this is how movies get made and so there was no rehearsal time at all and I again this will mean more to you after you see the movie but Jessica and Idris have about a half a dozen very play like scenes they're there it's just the two of them in interest is office he's he's a criminal defense lawyer and those are the kinds of scenes that you need rehearsal for that you wish you had a preview period like on Broadway because you need repetition you need the actors to be able to there's a lot of language you need them to be able to casual eyes this language to have ownership of it and that that really only happens after repetition that's when that's the difference between you know memorizing your lines which is what you do in high school and having ownership of it being able to toss it off like you're just saying your phone number and that was you know missing from our budget and that was unacceptable you know there's no point in doing the movie it's no point in casting Jessica and Idris and Kevin Costner Michael Cera Bill Camp Chris O'Dowd all these great actors if you can't allow them at least a chance to do their best I was given that chance I didn't show anybody a page of this until I thought I've done my best so the best I could do was about four six weeks before the start of shooting I started virtual rehearsal with the actors we're either email skyping sometimes on the phone we would go through the rehearsal process scene by scene we would talk through everything I would kind of write them a brief essay on what was important in the scene right now where that transition was that they were gonna have to make but none of that would have mattered at all if Jessica and Idris did not show up every day completely prepared not just having memorized their lines but owning it and those scenes that I was talking about those things that take place in addresses office those were our because of interest is schedule those were the they were all shot in a row that was the very first scenes that we shot and every day and it was one shooting day per scene every day anytime there was any kind of break the lighting change anything like that interesting Jessica would be working on tomorrow's scene they already own today see they'd be working on tomorrow's scene so what she got with Jessica who's in every scene in the movie what she got from Jessica was not only a terribly skilled actor with she went to Julliard one of the finest trained actors in the world and you know a very special actor that brings to it a you know her own brand of magic what you get is a very hard worker and more than that you can't ask for we now time for a few questions from the audience there are mics that will be passed around so we'll try to go from one side to the other and we will start with just yes in the middle with your hand up your hair is up yep [Music] and you saw if I might have done that differently yeah first of all first of all thank you for the question and there's there's I've never written anything a movie of play an episode of television I've never written anything that I didn't wish I could have back and and write again and I'll bet you everyone feels that way I can't believe that I'm alone doing that and yes there were plenty of times during the process of directing Molly's game where I wanted to call all the directors I've ever worked with and say I'm sorry I didn't know I you get we also by the way had and we shot most of Molly's game was shot right here on stages in Toronto over at Pinewood and I have to say it was the best crew I've ever been a part of it without a doubt you know we come for the tax break but the province of Ontario and the City of Toronto could charge more and we would still come because of the cruise they are phenomenally talented but the spirit is it's so great to see I'm a big morale a guy and you know you just you love it when you know the boom operator is as engaged in making the movie as as you are or anyone else so you know that that's an unrepairable debt that that I owe to them that said it's just part of the part of directing it turns out is you are making a decision every eight seconds someone is saying to you the red scarf or the blue scarf this and that it and now I understand my very first director was Rob Reiner on on a few good men and I noticed about a week before shooting started on a few good men that he began to wear the same thing every day khakis and a white button-down shirt and so after day four or five I said you know Rob I've noticed that you've started wearing same thing every day is it superstition now and he said no it's because when you're directing you make so many decisions throughout the day I don't want to start my morning with one I've got a closet full of Gap khakis a closet full of white shirts that's what I'm wearing I'm not staring at my closet and I'm thinking what should I do okay well we'll try to go to this side of the audience towards the back black I um I was just curious about your raining process it seems like because you're so dialogue-driven that you may be the kind of writer that just sits down and kind of lets the characters talk but as you've moved into screenwriting it's so structured what's the role of outlining in your process is it there and how kind of detailed do you get with that I've I've never outlined before I use index cards a lot it'll just it just kind of organizes my mind I've never index card carded the whole movie because I don't think I've ever at the point when I've started writing a screenplay known everything that there is to know about the whole movie I I figured out how it's gonna start and and I have some other things along the way but it's kind of like walking in the dark with a flashlight you can really only see as far ahead of you as as the light goes so before I'm able to let the characters talk as you said I'll just go back to this because of how critically important it is how how fundamental it is I'm not making this up Aristotle made this up okay and he's right and if you buy it's not even a book it's a ballot for the pamphlet it's about 64 pages long I called the poetics Aristotle's Poetics he lays out the rules of drama so I worship at the altar of intention and obstacle I and I if I can so if I if I know what that is in the first scene and I've done enough pacing around and and can start to you know it starts to feel right I can hear it it makes sense there's a clear intention and obstacle I try to get kind of as loaded up on that as I can and then I write and I write as quickly as I can you know those those nights where I'm smashing my face and into the mirror because I'm so physical and doing it's because I am i cant type as fast as i'm writing now in my head and i don't want to stop so once you get to that point start writing i really believe that the energy makes its way onto the page okay we have time for one final question your hand shot up right away in the front row so i'm gonna go to you and i'm just wondering because you tend to act out as you write like just coming back from an acting background other than yourself who do you think has been the best at performing your prose the way that you intended it well I'm the luckiest person really I am I just catch a lot of breaks and one of them is the casts of actors that I've worked with have been fantastic so I'm not going to crown one person as the person who could do that I'll say this if we were in gym class and we were some captain's had been picked and we're choosing sides for a movie we're going to make or play we're gonna do or television series that we're gonna do we don't know what it is okay but we're we're each gonna choose the actors that we want on our side well then if I were able to choose allison janney Felicity Huffman Brad Whitford Richard Schiff Jeff Daniels the entire cast of the social network the they've all been great you know they've they've all been great and I'm I'm indebted to them it's and here's why because they they come in respecting a language and and and they want to get it right and they don't mind coming to me and saying listen can you do me a favor say this line for me I know that you did it right when you wrote it in your office just say it for me they're fantastic about it I did discover when I was directing that I do not give the actors an opportunity to breathe while they're speaking I'm working on that particular flaw and in my style but I'm very grateful and and and particularly just because it's its most recently the cast of Molly's game Jessica listen Jessica takes the movie on her back straps it to her back in the first scene and runs with it does not let go of it until the credits roll at the end as you'll see I hope but a jurist Kevin Costner Bill Camp Chris O'Dowd Jeremy's strong Michael Cera they were each and every one of them and I'm sure I'm leaving people of each and every one of them fantastic and if you replaced any one of them with someone else it would diminish them well you are indebted to your actors and we are indebted to you I think for everything you've done for the screen and for coming and sharing all of these insights with us today I hope you guys all get a chance to see Molly's game and thank you all so much for coming thanks very much I really appreciate it thank you all we're off to a great start aren't we Thank You Aaron so much at 11 o'clock we have our next panel up if you are interested in the future of cinema and emerging technologies come back here at 11 o'clock get a quick coffee come back here in the studio thank you

Channel: TIFF Originals

Views: 169,857

Rating: 4.901289 out of 5

Keywords: tiff 2017, Toronto, film, Toronto International Film Festival, Art, Cinema, TIFF, Bell, LIghtbox

Id: Q-4t2tFExKY

Length: 64min 15sec (3855 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 08 2017

Reddit Comments

[u/TheStreamQueen]

Not the correct link. Sorry.

It should be populating this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzlQTeUzC4s&app=desktop

Actual Video in post should be Seth’s Sorkin Sketch

[u/monicagellerr]

“Sorkin Airlines where the planes only have west wings.” Ha

Edit: does anyone know where I can find the “west wing on mushrooms” SNL skit?