NPR Interview with Aaron Sorkin

Dev Patel reports on The Newsroom 

What can you tell us about your character?

He is a kid from the UK [who] experienced the London tube bombings which he films and sends to the news stations. He’s the new age of news-casting; he uses Facebook and Twitter, he’s youthful and idealistic.

Does the show present the news world as exciting?

There is a lot of kinetic speed in the newsroom. The opinion of these newscasters can influence the public so you can imagine the tension between the characters behind the scenes. This show really takes the media on as an establishment and it deals with what really is newsworthy.

The show has been met with a mixed reaction. How do you feel about criticism?

It is a show with a very strong opinion and obviously that is going to ruffle feathers and we knew that from day one. So it’s nothing new, really.

Author of American Psycho and The Rules of Attraction, Brett Easton Ellis has been a bit critical of the show but has a burning question, tweeting – “Whilst enduring The Newsroom and Jeff Daniels empire anguish, I just kept wondering – do we ever get to see Dev Patel naked?”

[laughs] Oh god! That’s hilarious! That’s bizarre. Should I find that creepy or a compliment?

Compliment, definitely. Will he get his question fulfilled?

Weirdly, I don’t think I am the sexy one in the show, but I do get my kit off in a way, which is strange. I didn’t expect it. Romance blossoms – let’s just say that!

Olivia Munn Defends The Newsroom 

Someone told me they read something like, “If Emily Mortimer’s character had gone to war and sustained injuries, how could she get so flustered by accidentally sending out an e-mail?”

Some people are really stuck on that as an example of how Aaron writes women. 
I think it’s not that she made a mistake, but that she got so flustered. My character doesn’t get flustered. I don’t get flustered, either. But if you get bothered by the freak-outs, I can tell you that if you know these women, they come from a place of truth. Alison [Pill] is one of the most genuine, excited, genuinely excited people you will ever meet. In the middle of a live set, she’ll be screaming about hockey. She’s Canadian and she’s like, “Go Canada!” And then you have Emily [Mortimer], who’s got two small children and has this crazy great energy. She never seems tired, she lifts you up.

I know the critics are also saying the show’s smug, that it’s like Monday morning quarterback. I understand that. If you’re looking at it as Sorkin trying to tell us how to do the news, and this is how we should have done it better, I get it. There’s an element of that. And there’s some naïveté, but that’s why it’s a drama. I’m an ex-journalist. I majored in journalism and I worked in local news stations. My first job was on the assignment desk of an NBC station in Tulsa, Oklahoma. I truly believe nobody goes into journalism to report on the latest celebrity pregnancy or sensationalize the murder of a child. They want to provide the people with vital information. Sorkin loves journalists, loves the media, loves the news. I don’t believe the show is his soapbox for him to lecture the media on how to be better. On the contrary, I believe his show is an opportunity to help the audience fall in love with the news again. I felt bad for Aaron.

What was it like working with him?
Every day I was like, “Was that good? Am I okay?” I mean, there was no question I was burying myself in the material, but one day while we were filming he said to me, “I just want you to know, you deserve to be here. I think there’s a big part of you that’s intimidated by how many Broadway people are on the show. Jeff Daniels, Sam Waterston … Emily’s British. The British are very intimidating. That’s why you work so hard, and that’s why you’re getting more to do on the show.”

We haven’t seen too much of Sloan yet on The Newsroom, but in next week’s episode, we’ll find out she doesn’t have much of a social life.
She’s the girl who is smart and intelligent and competent and a little socially inept — that is me. Here’s what else I want to tell you about her: I wanted her to be wearing very fitted clothes because I didn’t want her to shy away from the fact that she’s a woman and she’s feminine and she’s not embarrassed by her body. She doesn’t feel like she needs to cover up for you to take her seriously. Just wait for the stuff that comes out of her mouth. It’s like how I’m also aware of how people see me. I know I’ve done Maxim. I give candid interviews. I know there are women who don’t like me, but that’s their problem. You can be smart and beautiful and embrace your sexuality and still have that not be all you are. And you know what? You should root for me, because I’m not the girl who will fuck your boyfriend.

Emily Mortimer (Cars 2, The Newsroom) on Conan

So do you see Sorkin character patterns in your show?
Can I see Janel Moloney [Donna, from The West Wing]? Yes. The answer is yes. Of course I am; why wouldn’t I be? And that was sort of my first instinct. I think with any television show it sort of opens up and gets in your bones and different chemistry with different people plays havoc with whatever your plans are, and I think in the end it ends up being a very different show just because it’s different people. But yes, the Sorkinian archetypes are there. I think it’s a starting point, because if you drop these archetypes into anywhere it’ll be interesting because they’re good characters. And I also believe in the reality of the clumsiness, hysteria, and overall, like, craziness of these people. Women or male. I fully believe that it’s quite real. I know nobody thought it was believable about the [auto-complete e-mails], but I was like “That’s totally believable, I would totally do that.” Emily [Mortimer] and I were both like, “We’re relatively successful women and we cannot … I mean I would totally mess up with the e-mails and tripping and falling. If you followed me around with a camera every day it would be like, “My God! Oh, so that’s where that bruise came from.”

The Donna comparison makes me concerned for Maggie’s future relationship. I mean, we waited seven years for Josh and Donna.
Well, here’s the thing about serial drama: It works better when they’re not together.
(…) And trust me, once you get into the Mac and Will of it all, you’re going to be wishing for them. There’s a lot of soul mates floating around the bullpen. And you just kinda have to go with the flow. Trust me, it is hard when I’m like, Man, Jim Harper and Maggie Jordan should just be together. From the word go, they were meant to be together. They’re soul mates, it’s done. I cannot guarantee it’s going to be an easy road.

Is there going to be an Amy Gardener character?
I have no idea. There begins to be an introduction of another person in the to-be triangle — um, it gets complicated.

You had a guest-starring role as a campaign volunteer in Aaron Sorkin’s previous hit, The West Wing. Did that help you get this part?
No, as a matter of fact, Aaron Sorkin didn’t even connect until the end of shooting season one of The Newsroom that I was the same guy. We shot that episode in 2002, when I was 18. I had really long hair and I looked entirely different. I never got to meet Aaron when we were doing that.

Stephen Colbert's epic question to Aaron Sorkin, and Aaron Sorkin's pithy answer. 

• STEPHEN: You know, your characters -- the characters on your show -- you're often criticized for writing characters who speak in these huge, ponderous monologues.
• AARON: Steve, I'm just often criticized, okay?
• STEPHEN: Yes you are. But people say you don't write the way people talk. That people don't actually talk to other people in fusillades of arguments, in sort of a verbal Normandy that just overtakes the person they're speaking to in the other chair, but the audience that's listening. And that the person who is saying it is actually just an expression of you, up on a mountain. But is it Moses on the mountaintop, or just Aaron Sorkin on his own pile of bullshit, and he doesn't have the golden tablet in his hands, he's just doin' a line off the tablet right there, and saying "LOOK AT ME, I'M THE FUCKING KING OF MEDIA!!!" People don't talk like that. You realize that that's not realistic.
• AARON: People don't talk like that. And -- at least at my high school -- it wasn't like "Glee."

And speaking of people you’ve previously worked with, you played Alison Pill’s brother on the 2003 film “Pieces of April,” right? And now you’re playing her character’s love interest? Are you two friends offscreen? 
 
We’d go through periods where we wouldn’t see or speak to each other for awhile, but she’s always been someone I just love and admire. Whenever we did see each other, it’s a great reunion. I was so excited for the opportunity to work with Alison again, she’s so much fun and it’s been a blast. To have someone that you have a lot of history with in a world that feels so much like a new and foreign enterprise — neither of us have found ourselves doing a season of a television show before — is a very refreshing thing. 
 
Wait, was she just on Broadway doing “House of Blue Leaves” when you were doing “Jerusalem”? 
 
Yes! And as a result, we never got to see each other’s shows. But we would run into each other in the neighborhood. It would be great to work with her onstage.

“The guys from HBO show #TheNewsroom visit with @piersmorgan at a real one. Here’s a sneak peek. Interview airs 9P. — Piers Morgan Tonight (@PiersTonight)”