Line #54 Creator/AaronSorkin


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3	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Aaron-Sorkin_7164.jpg]]
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5	->''"Roxy Sorkin, your father just won the UsefulNotes/AcademyAward. I'm going to have to insist on some respect from your guinea pig."''
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7	Aaron Benjamin Sorkin (born June 9, 1961) is an American screenwriter, director, producer and playwright. He's the man behind ''Series/Studio60OnTheSunsetStrip'', ''Series/SportsNight'', ''Series/TheNewsroom'' and ''Series/TheWestWing''. His scripts have many distinctive traits, including a dialogue style known for timing and finesse that has garnered the moniker "Sorkinese". His shows are also notorious for characters [[WalkAndTalk walking down hallways]] while [[{{Exposition}} expositing]] at [[MotorMouth high speed]].
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9	Also has a habit of projecting [[WriterOnBoard his personal life]] into his shows -- duly lampooned on ''Series/SaturdayNightLive'' (a sketch in which ''Series/TheWestWing'''s characters reenact Sorkin's [[MushroomSamba marijuana hallucinations]]).
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11	Sorkin also wrote several plays, such as ''Film/AFewGoodMen'' and screenplays such as the film adaptation of ''A Few Good Men'', ''Film/TheAmericanPresident'', ''Film/CharlieWilsonsWar'', ''Film/TheSocialNetwork'', for which he won an [[UsefulNotes/AcademyAward Oscar]] for Best Adapted Screenplay.
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13	His most recent venture into television, the {{Creator/HBO}} series ''Series/TheNewsroom'', starring Creator/JeffDaniels premiered in 2012 and ended with a shortened final season in December 2014. Unlike several of his other TV projects, ''The Newsroom'' was not canceled by the network and he also wasn't thrown out (as happened on ''The West Wing'') but he thought the story and characters did not provide material for more seasons. Sorkin has since stated in interviews that he does not want to write anything but theater and feature length movies in the future, explicitly citing that ''Series/TheWestWing'' is a ToughActToFollow.
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15	He had a well-known on/off relationship with Creator/KristinChenoweth for several years. He is not related to Creator/ArleenSorkin.
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17	!!TropeNamer for:
18	* SorkinRelationshipMoment
19	----
20	!!Penned Works
21	[[index]]
22	* ''Film/AFewGoodMen'' (1992) [[note]] Based on his 1989 play[[/note]]
23	* ''Film/{{Malice}}'' (1993)
24	* ''Film/TheAmericanPresident'' (1995)
25	* ''Film/TheRock'' (1996, uncredited)
26	* ''Film/ExcessBaggage'' (1997, uncredited)
27	* ''Film/{{Bulworth}}'' (1998, uncredited)
28	* ''Film/EnemyOfTheState'' (1998, uncredited)
29	* ''Series/SportsNight'' (TV, 1998-2000)
30	* ''Series/TheWestWing'' (TV, 1999-2006)
31	* ''Series/Studio60OnTheSunsetStrip'' (TV, 2006–07)
32	* ''Film/CharlieWilsonsWar'' (2007)
33	* ''The Farnsworth Invention'' (2007)
34	* ''Film/TheSocialNetwork'' (2010)
35	* ''Film/{{Moneyball}}'' (2011)
36	* ''Series/TheNewsroom'' (TV, 2012-2014)
37	* ''Film/SteveJobs'' (2015)
38	* ''Film/MollysGame'' (2017, directorial debut)
39	* ''Theatre/ToKillAMockingbird'' (2018) [[note]] Broadway adaptation of the Harper Lee novel[[/note]]
40	* ''Film/TheTrialOfTheChicago7'' (2020, directed as well)
41	* ''Film/BeingTheRicardos'' (2021, directed as well)
42	* ''Theatre/{{Camelot}}'' [[note]] New book for the 2022 Broadway revival of the musical[[/note]]
43	[[/index]]
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45	!!Tropes associated with Aaron Sorkin
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47	* AsHimself: In ''Series/{{Entourage}}'' and ''Series/ThirtyRock''.
48	* AuthorAvatar: A tool for WriterOnBoard.
49	* AuthorCatchphrase:
50	** "What Kind Of Day Has It Been" is the title for many of his finale episodes, including ''The West Wing'', ''Sports Night'', and ''The Newsroom''.
51	** Someone put together [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S78RzZr3IwI two]] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jeuV3xXxUc supercuts]] of phrases or lines he's used in multiple works.
52	* BasedOnATrueStory: Five of last six screenplays are adaptations of nonfiction books, and ''The Trial of the Chicago 7'' is also based on real events.
53	* CannotTellAJoke: Dana in ''Series/SportsNight'' and Harriet in ''Series/Studio60OnTheSunsetStrip''
54	* CharacterFilibuster[=/=]MotorMouth: Some of his characters have more poetry memorized than anyone in the world (besides English majors) and love quoting it.
55	** WaxingLyrical: A RunningGag spanning his works involves a character topping off a long list of their credentials with: [[Theatre/HMSPinafore "...and I'm never-never sick at sea!"]]
56	* DeadpanSnarker: His works are set in a WorldOfSnark where rapid-fire SnarkToSnarkCombat is the name of the game.
57	* {{Expy}}: He loves to iterate his characters from one work to another. The president and staff from ''Film/TheAmericanPresident'' are pretty blatant precursors to parallel characters in ''Series/TheWestWing''.
58	* KirkSummation / BreakThemByTalking / TheReasonYouSuckSpeech: It's almost ripe for parody how many Sorkin storylines end up with someone smacking down someone else (and their point of view) with a climactic rapid-fire CharacterFilibuster. Most apparent in his political shows.
59	* MotorMouth: A requirement of all characters in his works. You'd be hard pressed to find someone who doesn't speak at 150 words a minute.
60	* SelfDeprecation: In his appearance on ''30 Rock'' which, given his famously thin-skinned reputation, is nothing short of astonishing.
61	* ShoutOut: You'd be surprised how many references to Gilbert and Sullivan he can cram into his works. Outright quoting the songs, an episode on Studio 60 centered around a MajorGeneralSong and to say nothing of the fact that every second resume ends with "and I'm never ever sick at sea"
62	* SignatureStyle: Machine gun fast dialogue. Comedic repetition. Casual {{ShoutOut}}s by the metric ton. Tall, smart, sexy, sassy women who give as good as they get. Characters who veer oh-so-close to cynicism, only to come back to hope and idealism. Extremely liberal world view (at least by US standards). He also has an odd fondness for names like Donna, Dana, Danny and so on and likes them shouted across the room. He includes common criticisms of his writing style in his short play ''Hidden in this Picture''; a film director tells his Sorkin-proxy screenwriter the following
63	-->"I think your work has a tendency to be long-winded and cynical, I think you have trouble handling exposition, you take forever to introduce the inciting action, and all your female characters talk and act as if they've just stepped off Series/TheLoveBoat."
64	** Actors who have worked on his shows equate his scripts to playing in an orchestra. Unlike most acting gigs where actors can freestyle and include their own takes and personality (like in jazz), Sorkin performers have to follow every note on the page, every inflection, every punctuation exactly to its last detail, like individual players in each section of an orchestra, because his cadence builds and swells with a natural, musical harmony. The best example of this is the Pilot of ''Series/TheWestWing'', where dozens of characters talk and bicker and argue, call and respond for 40+ minutes, escalate to a dramatic crescendo... only to fall silent to a solo performance by the President himself.
65	** Martin Sheen once told a story about trying to convince Sorkin that he should read a punctuation mark in one of his scripts as a semi-colon instead of a hyphen. According to Sheen, he gave a very long explanation, to which Sorkin only responded, "I'll think about it." That's how seriously Sorkin regards the text of his scripts.
66	* SlidingScaleOfIdealismVersusCynicism: An Idealist through and through and goddamn proud of it.
67	* SpeechCentricWork Sorkin has stated that he went to the theater before he really understood what was going on there but liked the sound of the dialogue. And it shows in his work, well read characters rattling off complex thoughts - often on politics - with a handful fo author catchphrases thrown in here and there. He also defied the common wisdom that speeches don't work in scripted TV.
68	* SuspiciouslyAproposMusic: Sorkin plays around with characters' knowledge of music/songs and the different ways a soundtrack selection (frequently a high point of a Sorkin episode) can be set up in a diegetic or in-character way.
69	** In ''Series/SportsNight'' Casey and Dan discuss the Three Dog Night song "Eli's coming" and that it represents "something bad" that's just around the corner. At the end of the episode, it plays when Casey has to share some bad news with Dan (with the latter in the anchor's seat, with seconds back no less). The episode fades to black as the song reaches its full power and a devastated Dan tries to keep his composure on live TV.
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71	* UncreditedRole:[[invoked]] He was a script doctor for several films, including ''Film/SchindlersList'', ''Film/TheRock'', ''Film/{{Bulworth}}'' and ''Film/EnemyOfTheState''.
72	* WalkAndTalk: His stuff is a TropeCodifier (and former TropeNamer: "SorkinWalk"), to the point of a moment in ''Series/TheWestWing'' where the characters who've just done it stop and wonder where the heck they're going. He made a point of avoiding it in ''Series/TheNewsroom'', utilizing it exactly once in the pilot episode and never again after that.

Context Creator / AaronSorkin