The Bill Simmons Podcast - Aaron Sorkin, a Potential Rams-Pats Sequel, Kyrie's Leadership, and Million Dollar NFL Picks With Joe House | The Bill Simmons Podcast (Ep. 470)

Episode Date: January 18, 2019

HBO and The Ringer's Bill Simmons is joined by Joe House to discuss Kyrie Irving's leadership and recent criticism of the Boston Celtics, and Bill's million dollar bets for the NFL conference championships (2:20). Then, Bill sits down with legendary screenwriter, director, and playwright Aaron Sorkin to discuss his unique writing origins and some of his most famous work, including 'A Few Good Men,' 'The West Wing,' 'Sports Night,' 'The Social Network,' his new play on Broadway, and more (55:00). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today's episode of the Bill Simmons Podcast on the Rigger Podcast Network, brought to you as always by ZipRecruiter. You know what's not smart? Going against the Pats in the playoffs. I tried to tell you last week, it's not smart. You can do it. It might work out for you. It's not necessarily smart.

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It's been completely transformed. Learn more at callawaygolf.com slash AI. We're also brought to you by the Rewatchables, my favorite podcast. I love it more than this one. I'm sorry. This is my mistress now. I'm all about The Rewatchables. No, just kidding.

I'll always love this one the most. It has my name in it. But The Rewatchables, we did old school this week. We have The Fast and The Furious coming up next week. And a whole bunch of good ones coming up. People like that podcast. Check out our Facebook group for it as well. Coming up, we are going to talk to Joe House about Kyrie Irving and what leadership means in 2019 about House's revamped golf podcast. And also we're going to do some

conference championship picks. And then one of the great screenwriters in the history of this world, Aaron Sorkin. Been dying to have him come on. He's a legend. We're going to talk a few good men. We're going to talk West Wing. We're going to talk Sports Night. We're going to talk Social Network. Oh, man, we're doing it all.

It was such a pleasure to have him on. That's all coming up first. Our friends from Pearl Jam. All right, we have Aaron Sorkin coming up in a little bit. Right now, another one of the greatest screenwriters of our generation, Joe House. House, how are you? I'm fantastic, although my football picks movie lately has been pretty crappy. Well, thank you for staying off the parlay I did last week with the Saints and the Patriots,

and then the incredible hedge I did. I don't know. I might have used up all my gambling luck for the playoffs last week. We're going to talk about football in a second. Wanted to mention, your golf podcast is coming back next week. We are retitling it and reconfiguring it a little bit. And we need a title.

We need a title for your golf podcast. We need a new title. And we have a lot of options and possibilities but nothing that we love so what we were thinking was maybe we would go to the twitter as you call it and go and have people tweet title ideas to at house from dc and you can sort it out for yourself all weekend what do you think of that yeah i i love it uh and maybe it would be helpful to talk about the concept this is going to be a golf podcast that sort of covers all walks of of golf life we're doing everything from from tiger woods to to transfusions and i'm not talking about tiger's back therapy there i'm

talking about the beverage yeah uh we have a rotating cast of of ringer and calloway peeps we got megan schuster who's already a heavy contributor on the ringer golf beat we got kevin clark's coming on he's a he's a golf gambling degenerate i know that that chris vernon's involved he's a he's a life degenerate uh and then famous tv personality covering covering the golf and and and football amanda baleona's making some appearances i believe and then uh unpaid ringer intern nathan hubbard's gonna be on there every once in a while and and then um from the degenerate trifecta i think you have to have harry on at once, right? Yeah, Harry and I love to talk golf gambling. It's mainly been by way of text and email in the past

with the cuz playing conduit on it. But I know Harry is a deep golf gambling devotee. And we're hopeful we should have some decent guests. There's a lot of folks in the Ringer universe that enjoy the golf. We heard none other than the Winging It podcast guys, Vince Carter and Kent Bazemore. I mean, I think Baz likes golf more than he likes basketball. So we don't have a title we love.

We kind of liked House Money. We liked, I think, some of them. I'm just going to read some titles we threw out. Maybe America can decide they like them. Halfway House, which we decided sounded like a VH1 reality show. But we liked that. Something with Mulligan. Maybe we were in on that. Scramble House.

I mean, these are all really terrible. You wanted to call it Leave the Flagstick in. Leave the Flagstick in. The Legend of Bagger House. Hold on, I have a couple more. Because our friend Nathan sent us a couple. Oh, what was the last?

Quiet, please. We had that one. Go ahead. I was going gonna say you like the the board somebody holding up i like the paddle where there isn't really the the most important thing as far as i'm personally concerned is to have something that i can yell yeah uh you know that that i it's it's crucial to the success of the podcast that I have a name that I can torture everybody with. So that's – Quiet Please didn't quite fit that. I mean it's a little too – one of our colleagues observed it's a little too Tennessee.

Right. The zipper zone was rejected by all parties. We decided that couldn't be the thing. But if you have an idea, send it to House from DC with a little at in front of it. He's on the Twitter. That's the Twitter. And then if you come up with the name, we'll shout you out on this podcast

and on the other podcasts. And maybe we'll send you, I don't know what, some Callaway golf balls? We'll definitely send some Callaway golf balls probably a t-shirt we'll get a t-shirt going t-shirt

something a frame picture definitely some balls a frame picture I mean what's wrong I like breakfast balls but you know it's a little too

over the edge breakfast balls yeah it's a pretty good name what do you call the thing in the golf with the with the breakfast

when it's like a breakfast scramble? What am I thinking of? What's the golf? It's like a little tournament. It's like a gimmick tournament. It has breakfast in the title. Oh, I'm not sure that I'm getting it.

No, I thought there was one of them. Shotgun Start? Yeah, that can't be the title. Shotgun Start with Joe House. Well, I mean, that is the thing I think you're describing. It is like early morning, and all of the foursomes have to be out on the course commencing the round at the same time so everybody can get around. That's called Shotgun Start.

I also kind of liked House of One. Like a hole-in-one, but a house of one. Like a hole-in-one, but a house of one. House of one. House in one. It's not the worst. House-in-one. Yeah.

All right. Well, we thank our good pals at Callaway for bringing us back. Yeah. Yeah. We actually, I was going to mention, they have some new stuff coming out that we'll talk about in a little bit. But I want to talk about Kyrie Irving really quick. Yes.

Zach and I talked about him the other day about the whole leadership thing and being a little dubious of Kyrie just repeatedly railing against the young guys on the team. Then he pulled a weird power trip last night where he told the story about how he called LeBron, and I don't feel like I'm paraphrasing this or misrepresenting it, but it was basically like, oh, I was young once and super hungry

and wanted everything. The way he phrased it was perfectly fine. And now I realize looking back that I was probably tough to handle for LeBron, and so I wanted to get his input on that. And the implication looking through it was, oh, you're having trouble with really ambitious, headstrong people in their early 20s

and you were once that person with LeBron James, so now you're calling him to see how to handle it. But really saying that he's playing with these ambitious people in their early 20s who need to settle the fuck down. He doesn't say that. It's all positive but it just was yet another dig at the tatum brown generation what was your take on that whole thing well the piece of it that i enjoyed was this equivalent equivalency like is he telling us

indirectly that he fancies himself to occupy the same status and stature as LeBron James? Is he – like that's a false equivalency is the way I would think about it. And you guys made – I was lucky enough to be on the heat check this week with Juan Gon, John Gonzalez. I heard it. And I made the point that you and Zach made as well. That's that's the single most sort of compelling aspect of this. Who the F told Kyrie that he is a leader of men.

What he's great at is basketball. Yeah. Super duper great at scoring the basketball. But you know this is the same problem. I've been railing against this here in washington with my point guard john wall because there is this um this tension this very uh you know tough position that teams find themselves in when they make a huge trade for a guy like the celtics did for kairi or what the wizards did drafting john wall number one just because he's really good at that singular skill

of being kind of a basketball court leader and the thing that distinguishes both of them as top ten picks doesn't mean that they can motivate guys, that they can be leader of guys, that they've done anything to to earn those guys respect in terms of like basic motivation and and management kind of concept so i i i having watched it here in washington for a couple years and it's it is going to be a failure if they did they can't trade john wall this team is doomed to 37 wins a season as the ceiling um i i rub my hands together with glee to observe it in Boston.

Well, so I feel bad because I do feel like Kyrie's stuff is coming from a genuine place. I agree. I just don't think, I think he's 26 and he doesn't really understand the concept of leadership like maybe he thinks he does. But we're also putting 26-year-old people in a position to be leader of men with the contracts they get, with the way they are treated by the media and by fans. They have their own shoe.

He's made the game-winning shot in the finals, all this stuff. He probably does think he's a leader. My point is he's doing a really bad job at it because being the leader of a basketball team is actually how you handle things that you and I would never know what's going on. So this is the curious thing to me. He and John Wall both share this trait. They're self-appointed leaders. The folks that should be intervening and interceding and tapping the brakes a little bit on that or the franchise it's like it's the team that should be somebody that Kyrie trusts at the Celtics should be having a sit down with him and helping him think about the big picture I admire Kyrie's thoughtfulness

and the the depth and breadth of of his kind of approach to this, but he just kind of doesn't get it, and you just made a great observation. He's 26 years old. What would he know about actually leading people? He played one year in college, and he played half a season. Right, and maybe his experience with LeBron, and there's some do's and don'ts with that that you kind of learn as it goes along.

Oh, if I ever get in this spot, I won't do that. Or, oh, that's a good thing that he just did. But in general, I think it's really hard to be the leader of a basketball team in 2019 with all the shit that can cause the team to go sideways. But I look at it like, all right, who were the good leaders? This is what I tweeted today in the morning about, you know, like Tim Duncan, by all accounts, incredible leader. You never heard Tim Duncan say jack shit to the media. He could not have been less interested in ever saying anything. Steve Nash was another one.

Nash in the mid 2000s was the leader of some really complicated Suns teams that played hard, but also had really big personalities and had Amaris Stoudemire and Sean Marion together. And Sean Marion, who is just consistently positioned as this kind of third wheel, he does all the dirty work, he doesn't get a lot of shots. And that would be a hard thing to manage

from time to time. You have Amaris who doesn't guard anybody, who is definitely a mercurial personality. I think a really liked teammate, but an interesting guy to play with. And then a bunch of really powerful role player personalities like Rajabell and Quentin Richardson, like big personalities.

And Nash navigated that, and they had this nice run where they almost made the finals basically every year for five years. Shaq comes in, then it kind of runs its course. Then it comes back in 2010

with probably the least talented of those Suns teams and that was a great leadership team by him where, you know, it was like the tail end of Amari. He was running his career

for that moment. Yeah, and Jared Dudley and it was just like it was all the personnel out of him and my point is like he didn't litigate through the press and he didn't say stuff like you know Joe Johnson has to learn what it takes to win a championship like I just don't feel like you have to say stuff like that ever and if you do say it say it behind closed doors I don't know

why you're telling like the fucking dude with the microphone in front of you. What's the point? I thought you were, there was a name missing from your list. I saw your tweet and I thought it was a little disrespectful to the hometown crew. How could Kevin Garnett not go on that list? I mean, talk about a guy that led by example. He should have. I should have had him on there.

You're right. I had Steph Curry. I mean, Duncan's the best example, but I had Steve Nash, Dirk Nowitzki later in his career as he really started to figure it out. And you're right. KG should have been on there too. I think KG's intense, but he's not somebody that had any use for the media, but you never heard him.

I just never liked the whole thing of these guys don't understand what it takes. It's so condescending. Well, there's just no point in talking. Why does he have to talk? He doesn't. That's my whole point with this whole thing. It's like, yeah, you have these games where you have the microphones in your face after, and your team's obviously going through some up and downs,

you don't have to talk about it. Like, he felt like he had to talk about whatever happened on Saturday with Gordon Hayward where he got mad at the final play, and he's explaining his side of the story. Does he have to? Because then the media is like, well, Kyrie wasn't accountable after the game.

I personally don't really care. I care more about, is this team going to be generating a story every four days where it's like, what the fuck is this now? Wait, that felt like a dig at Tatum Brown and the other guys. Philly's in the same spot. Jimmy Butler's another guy who probably just shouldn't give press conferences. Every time you just every time you're talking, it's it feels like I can interpret it one way or the other. Like, what are you gaining out of this? It is very interesting and telling that both of those players are in the same contract position, which is they are essentially auditioning right now this season for what they both hope to be is a mega max extension for both of them and i honestly believe that neither one of those two guys i said this on on uh the heat check this week i don't think that kairi irving is going to be on the boston celsus i put

it at 50 50 at best and i think there's there is a decreasing likelihood that jimmy butler is going to be on the Philadelphia 76ers. Now, the thing that I'm tapping the brakes a little bit because it's January and, you know, all of the basketball is in front of us. Like, let's wait till April. Let's wait till May when we start seeing these teams in the playoffs. And the true contribution and value and the leadership capacity of those two dudes is really built to shine. It's in the playoffs. That's where we'll see some leadership of men. So I'm recognizing that it's a little silly, the observation I'm making. But as we sit here right now, both of those guys are not helping their case for the mega max extension. Yeah. Well, the difference is Kyrie's going to get it. I think Butler is costing himself tens of millions of dollars with how this season has played out. I just don't see how anybody could sign him to the max at this point. I'm sympathetic to those guys. And I really, we're being critical, but I'm also, I don't, I'm not trying to crush these guys. And I'm not trying to do the, I'm in one corner, like really doing my hard take. I'm putting my feet down and I'm not, not trying to do the, uh, I I'm in one corner,

like really doing my hard take. I'm, I'm putting my feet down and I'm not doing that. I'm, what I'm saying is to me, this is a more philosophical thing. What do these guys have to gain from talking to the press and being that candid? I don't really understand that part in 2019.. I would just be like, after these games, yeah, man, it's disappointing. Be boring. In a way, you should almost be Belichick. Belichick was ahead of his time with this stuff. I don't think there's any real upside with Kyrie candidly talking about the deficiencies of his team. I can see the deficiencies. I'm watching it. I know that the shot selection's bad, and I'm sure the young guys are struggling with their minutes. But then when

he's talking about it so openly, I don't know how that helps. I don't think Jalen Brown was like, do you think Jalen Brown was like, you know, I wasn't really sure if Kyrie was right. But then when he talked to those 10 reporters and threw me under the bus, that made me realize he was right. It's fucking ridiculous. So here's the incredible thing. And I'm very, very disappointed that I'm not smart enough to have anticipated some of this. We had the opportunity. We were sitting on a stage in July of 2018 with the general manager of the Houston Rockets.

Yes. Daryl Morey. And we had the opportunity, like one of the questions that you sort of put out there was, what do we think, how do we think teams are going to be innovating? Like what, how, as teams kind of reinvent their approach to success, what kinds of things might they be emphasizing? And I regret not being prescient enough to ask about this dynamic that we're experiencing right now with Kyrie and Jimmy. And the same thing is true in my own, I have to always relate things to the Wizards with John Wall, where like in sort of a basic management, a basic running of a business kind of way. Well, by the way, there's more than that.

I'm interrupting you quickly, like New Orleans, Anthony Davis. There's other examples of this too, right? Anthony Davis says, God, it's so hard. I just have to do so much every night for us to win. It's like, why are you saying that? If I'm your teammate, how does that make me feel? And what is the goal of that? I think Anthony Davis is different in the sense that he is setting the stage for what he wants to accomplish via free agency.

I get it. I still don't like it. I'm sorry I interrupted you. He wants to change positions. Keep going. No, it's okay. I'm really interested in what the internal dynamic is because in a basic business sense, you know, the culture by which leaders are raised and identified in the first place, identified and then raised and managed and

how leaders are sort of groomed to, you know, be successful with the folks around them, like that trust, that basic building of trust. The weird thing with the NBA is the pecking order is out of order. Like just because John Wall was picked number one doesn't mean he's capable of leading. Just because the Celtics traded what they traded to get Kyrie in the fold and Kyrie is their best scorer, what about that makes him fit to be speaking about the direction of the team? And Jimmy Butler, what he did in Minnesota and what he's doing now in Philadelphia, he's an important player to the success of both of those franchises.

But why are the franchises tolerating this? And some of it is probably just the nature of the communication options that folks have available to them. It's not that the team can tell Jimmy Butler to shut up. He can go on any TV show. He can go on Twitter. He can go on Instagram and say whatever he's going to say. And maybe that's the challenge. And to be fair, Jimmy Butler hasn't done that much so far, but he did have some sort of something in a team meeting and then talked about it pretty candidly after. But that team seems less happy since he showed up, I think.

They're figuring something out. I look at a team like Brooklyn that seems happy. I don't really know who their leader is. I don't really think it matters, but I know that they're all on the same page and they play hard and they all kind of say and do the right things. I think, I think the same thing true of the Clippers. Yeah.

Although that's starting to, that's starting to flip. Well, no, but, but that playing hard thing questions their effort. I, this was something Kobe used to do a lot and he would do it during, I mean, he was probably the

worst offender of it after Shaq left when the team was basically a 500 team for three years and Kobe was lecturing everybody on what he needed from the other people. And then when they actually got the right people around him and he was still doing it, it was actually the right people around him to do it. He'd like Pau Gasol. He could just bully him and do whatever. And Lamar Odom was just so grateful to be on a good team and have his life in pretty good shape at that point. And then Kobe could just pontificate about leadership. I really feel like leadership, part of leadership is not talking about how great of a leader you are.

It's weird. Hear my thoughts on leadership? It's fucking strange. You're a basketball player. I think the ones that have succeeded over the years are the ones that don't talk about it. But just in general, motivating people by publicly pointing out their faults is a weird way to do it like if i if like if i was like you know this podcast i'm sorry what's happened guys but uh

you know some people got to learn how to produce a really good podcast and you know we got a lot of young people in this production thing like nephew kyle who hasn't really been here and he's just got to step it up and he's just got to learn what it takes year round. And like Kyle Beck, what the fuck? Why are you saying that? Go back to just making fun of me for breaking up and getting back together with my girlfriend 40 times. Like you don't have to get personal. Oh, no.

Okay. All right. I'll write that down. No, it's just weird. I think, I don't think it's ever been weirder to follow a basketball team day in and day out than it is in 2019.

Everything gets blown out of proportion. Everything is, is, even this thing Kyrie said, he was trying to be magnanimous yesterday and it still felt like a dig. And we're talking about it right now. I just wouldn't say,

my advice would be, don't say anything. No more interviews. Well, I love it. I just wouldn't say, my advice would be don't say anything. No more interviews. Well, I love it. I want him to keep talking and I hope that it continues to sow seeds of unrest and dissension in the Celtics.

I really, really resent that comment. Hey, you know what I don't resent, House? Callaway. They keep pushing the boundaries of driver technology, pushing ball speed further than humanly possible the new epic flash driver

with flash face technology features Callaway's first ever driver face engineered with artificial intelligence by harnessing this power Callaway was able to create, test and refine over 15,000 different faces to find the absolute fastest one the way speed has been created

has been completely transformed. Learn more at CallawayGolf.com slash AI. Maybe we should call it the Flash Face Podcast with Joe House. Welcome to Flash Face. I'd just be too worried about people calling it the Ass Face Podcast, making a joke out of it. Speaking of name, I have a quick thing on this driver. they make a big point about the artificial intelligence the ai if you're going

to do anything with ai isn't the name the answer if you're going to do ai and ai is going to be a big part of your of your push god name's got to be the answer right well i think you should call it flash face but i think your nickname because you love giving nicknames to something that already has a nickname. That's true. You call it the answer. Flashface technology, but then say the answer. For me, it's going to be the answer. The colors are not my thing.

This is like Green Bay Packer or this Premier League soccer club, Norwich City Canaries. It's like this green and yellow. Yeah. But fortunately, you can custom color, so I'm going to get it murdered out. I'm going all black. I like that. So speaking of answers.

Yeah, we can see the all black. We have the conference championships coming up this weekend. My beloved Patriots are playing the late game in Kansas City. The early game will be New Orleans hosting the Rams of Los Angeles. Last week, million-dollar picks. I lost a little. I lost $650,000. I'm down $1.225 million for the playoffs,

but for this season, I'm up $3.11 million. That's a W. That's a win. Any which way you cut it, $3.1 million to the plus is good. Well, I hit on the Pat Saints money tease last week, which I should have put more on, but I still feel let down by the Colts. I'm going to let it go. I'm not going to hold it against them all year,

but I still don't totally understand what happened. What the hell happened to Andrew Luck? I don't know. It was a mystery. I lost in the ZFL because I overinvested in Andrew Luck, so I resent it. So Saints minus three and a half against the Rams. Sal and I did guess the lines on Sunday night.

And I guessed, I think, six and a half for this. That was a field goal. Wow. I really thought Vegas would be behind the Saints. I was really confused by it. And when Sal told me the real line, I was like, well, that's great. I think the Saints should be six and a half point favorites. Did all the research.

Spent the last four days diving into it. And my instinct going into it was I'm taking the Saints. I love them at home. They're 6-0 in home playoff games with Breeze and Peyton. They've all season have figured out just ways to pull out games. Even last week, a game they were down 14 to nothing. If you look at the yardage in the first downs, they had 10 more first downs.

They outgained the Eagles by 200 and something yards. And if Lutz hits the 52-yard field goal, the game's over. The Eagles don't even have that last drive. I have all of that. I'm leaning toward the Rams house. Oh, interesting.

I'm going to make the case for you. Good. You have 10 minutes to talk me out of it, or maybe 8. Okay. First of all, I think it's an either team can win game. I like it in the extra half point. Let me tap the brakes because

every site that i see right now has it down to three really since when i just looked like an hour ago i'm looking at well the action network has it at three had it opened at three and a half but now down to three um the shares pool site that i use scores and odds also that just the handful of places that I, that I look at, I see it at three right now. I have on two different online sites that I'm not going to mention that I use every time or both. I have it at three and a half. Hold on. I'm going on, on a public gambling site that I also like to use. And I want to see what it says right now. Boy,

this is exciting podcasting right here. Three and a half, three and a half. You're right. I'm sticking with three and a half. Oh, well, it's important that half point means a lot.

Well, I saw, I feel like it hasn't really publicly shifted down to three yet. So if some are getting at three, whatever, I'm still taking the three and a half. This is a total calm. It's available.

You could take the three and a half. It is public. It is available on, good. It's available. You can take the three and a half. It is available on a betting site right this second. Thanks for letting me take the bet I was already going to take. It feels like an either or game, which I like. So, the Rams

have already played there and they lost 45 to 35, right? How do you feel about the team that's already lost, but they played the team? I think the more 2019 has unfolded for me, I feel like it's an advantage for the loser. So we saw that with Chargers-Ravens. My daughter's soccer tournament last week beat a team handily on Saturday 2-0, but then ended up playing them again in the finals.

They were totally ready for whatever they needed to do. They got a fluky goal in the first half, and then we lost by a goal. But I realized as we were heading into the game when it was starting, when they knew what we were going to do, I was like, fuck, I hate playing a team that I've just played. And I think that helps the Rams more than the Saints, and here's why.

The Rams have kind of shifted who they were since that New Orleans game. Like Cooper Cup was in that game. They weren't – it was just Gurley and that's it. Yeah, it was just Gurley and that's it. Now it's like it's Gurley and C.J. Anderson. They have the Josh Reynolds thing. They're relying a little more on Woods than I think they ever have before. But then defensively, I think they're better

because they didn't have Tlaib in the first game, and I think that's a huge part of this. I think if you look at the Rams with Tlaib and without Tlaib, I think Tlaib's really good. And he's somebody that has, you know, he's been on the Patriots and he's given the Patriots problems. I like him against Michael Thomas. I think Michael Thomas is the best receiver in the league,

but he had 200-plus yards against the Rams last time. That's not going to happen this time. And, you know, this is a Lombardi point that I just like, where the Rams, for whatever reason, they lost their momentum the first 10 weeks. But it did seem like in that Cowboys game, they had a lot of big time guys who liked the spotlight of that game. And I keep coming back. If I take the Saints and I'm laying the three and a half and I'm going against Gurley, I'm going against a team that almost ran the ball 50 times last week. I'm going against Sean McVay.

I'm going against Aaron Donald, who was a beast last week, who's probably the best player in this game other than Thomas. And then on the flip side, I have the Saints who lost Sheldon Rankins, who is by all accounts their best interior lineman. And if you look at like the rush stats when he's on or off the field, it's kind of a disaster. And I always feel like when teams lose like their center or their run stopper, it's one of those things we don't really think about. We don't really understand those positions. That really makes me nervous. It's like the worst possible guy for them to lose in this game. And their offense, as everybody has pointed out this week, the stats for the offense, it's not like this is

this explosive Saints offense. They're like 19 or 20 points a week for the last six. That's right. They really only have one receiver I love. I really like Kamara. But it just feels like an either-or game to me.

And I really think you can make the case the Rams come in and run the ball down their throats. Then the last thing I'm going to mention they haven't played that many games indoors on turf, the Rams, but they're kind of built for turf. It really does kind of feel like a turf team

and I don't know. I kept gravitating toward the Saints 3.5 and I just kept getting nervous thinking like shit. Now really the only reason to do this is Saints six and O in playoff games. And I don't trust Jared Goff. So let me ask you house. If I laid the points and I have Jared Goff in the NFC title game, would you forgive me? No, because think about the position that you're in you're they're down four which means

that the rams were talking about there's there's two and a half minutes left and jared golf uh has the ball what is it what's your feeling how do you feel about that well how did i feel about it last week with nick foals as he was driving down the field on the saints and really jeffrey should have caught it and not to throw him under the bus but like foals that was now nick foals sucked that whole second half the nick foals magic you know karma the the football gods looked down and like oh we're going to put an end to this and then they waited for a very right moment to put it to the eagles fans now look the eagles fans have a lot to celebrate that team came up from the ashes i mean

the eagles stunk yeah uh you know they were a 500 team at best in the nfc east and then the wentz thing turned out the wentz injury turned out to be kind of a godsend and gave them one last sort of glorious run. And they got everything they could get out of that Super Bowl. And then they validated it. That was a really impressive performance into the playoffs. And they gave the Saints everything the Saints wanted to handle. The football guys looked down and like, eh, hey, watch this. Big Dick Nick has the ball. He hits Jeffrey in the hands. They have tons of time to go score a touchdown,

and it goes through his hands and to the Saints, and that's it. So that was kind of fun. I kind of enjoyed it as a Redskins fan. They were moving the ball, though. They were moving the ball. I mean, they were, you know. Now, look, they scored 14 points, and they didn't score any more points in the whole rest of the game right falls through a couple a couple picks

that wasn't helping the the bigger picture thing is there's all of this historical precedent that leans in favor of the saints and against the rams and including some stuff from this season. Like the Rams did not cover the spread in any of their last seven regular season games where they played against a team that finished with a winning record. So they covered the spread against teams that didn't finish the season with a winning record, but that's not good. They played three road games this year against teams that finished with winning records. Their record, their ATS, zero and three. Zero and three against a spread in road games against teams that finished with winning records. There's also this stat that is,

I just love this kind of shit. You know me. The referee, the head referee of the rams saints game is a gentleman named bill vinovich i'm not familiar with him but i'm sure i've seen him on on tv i couldn't pick him out of a lineup um if you told me his name the rams when bill vinovich is the head referee are oh and five straight up and against the spread. In fact, Rams Nation is on to this. Rams Nation has created a petition to have the league change, swap Bill Vinovich out of the head referee role in this game because they fared so poorly with him as the head referee. Okay.

You know I love those kind of nuggets that's pretty good the other thing that i'll say to you is do we have any sense as to whether or not the saints will be uh basically telling the rams their defensive schemes the way that the cowboys were with the the the awful ability to cover up the signals that came in. I mean, are the Saints going to give up 400 rushing yards this week the way that the Cowboys did because the Rams will know their play calls as well? Well, plus it's going to be louder. It's going to be tough to audible out of stuff and things like that. So Saints are up six.

There's like four minutes left. They get a first down on the Philly 33. Field goal wins the game. They just need eight more yards. Kamara runs left tackle for one. Short pass to Ingram for one. Kamara runs right tackle for minus three. Settling for the Lutz

52 yard field goal that's a game if you're a great team I feel like you get a first down on that drive it worries me that they didn't it really worries me that they didn't and you look at some of the stuff

they did in that game they're running plays with Hill is involved and he's running deep on plays and they were a little gimmicky trying to get going which really scared me and I don't know I felt like that game was close they really could have lost

I think you hit on it though there are no great teams in this year's playoffs as far as I'm personally concerned it's a pretty evenly matched four teams. And if any one of these four teams winning the Super Bowl, say okay. Congrats to them. They earned it. These are the four best teams in the league.

They distinguish themselves. It is a rarity that we have one-two against one-two. But they are the four best teams. And so, you know, pretty evenly matched which is why the lines are all gonna you know i don't know where they'll settle but like right around three three and a half well you just made the case to take the three and a half if everyone's evenly matched why aren't i taking points the half point is is is a really a a hit the pause button uh kind of opportunity the other thing is i really subscribe to your Sheldon Rankin's thing.

I think it's going to be immense. And what the Rams just did in terms of ball control and that play action, how they were able to set up the play action, that's the best case for Goff. If they're able to create a credible play action opportunity for him, then he's got the time to be back there and get comfortable. If he can't get comfortable, they're effed the rams are effed i mean this is there's still a little bit of work to do sean mcveigh has got a little ways to go to get golf up to that uh upper tier he still shows a little happy feet he you can see him get nervous sometimes yeah um if they can't if if the rams establish the run because Rankins is out then that

makes this game really interesting well and then the other thing is maybe Dallas is good and maybe that Rams victory was more impressive than we realized last week Dallas had a really good defense and the Rams annihilated it you know and it's like whether they

had the defensive signals or not I just don't understand how much of an advantage that could be it. And it's like whether they had the defensive signals or not, I just don't understand how much of an advantage that could be. Maybe I don't understand football. I think it's a humongous advantage. It could be an advantage where you rush for 48 times for 280 yards. With a zone rushing approach,

like the blocking schemes that you have in mind, where you're taking advantage because you know which side of the field you can run to because you know what the of the field you can run to because you know what the formation is? Absolutely. It's an enormous advantage. It's a humongous advantage.

You should have Lombardi. Lombardi could break it down, I bet. Yeah. I know it's an advantage. I just don't. I think people have now thrown that Dallas game away as, oh, Dallas wasn't that good and they had all their signals. And it's like, well, the Rams are really good in that game.

And the thing I like about them, the Rams are really good in that game. And the thing I like about them, the more I looked at them, I went back over their season, especially looked at the first 10 weeks and I'd kind of written them off a little bit mentally. But I do think they have an extra level to go to. And we've seen it a couple of times this season. And I just wonder against a team that's going to have trouble stopping their run, with the speed of the turf, with some of the defensive playmakers they have, with Tlaib's ability to defend Thomas, whether that's enough to make it a close game. I think it is.

So I'm going to take the three and a half. I'm putting a million bucks on it, House. You didn't talk me out of it. I'm going on the other side. I just want to be on the record. That's great. People love when we disagree. Yeah.

Pats, Chiefs, three point game. I know that I'm not going to feel dumb backing Sean Payton and Drew Brees in the Superdome playing for the chance to make it to the Super Bowl. Well, I'm going to feel dumb because this is part of my rationale for why I'm taking the Pats plus three other than being a homer. Yeah, I love it. The Belichick-Brady dynasty. Kyle, are you sitting down for this? Always. Do you have enough Kleenex in there on that side of the thing?

You might need to clean up after this. What are you about to say? What are you about to say? Pats Rams, 2001. Starting the century. Pats Rams, 2019. Ending the second decade of the century. Pretty good. I like the symmetry.

I can't get it out of my head house. Pats-Rams. Whoa, this is weird. Pats-Rams, McVay, Belichick. A lot of people love that McVay-Belichick angle. Tom Brady, still doing it after all these years? Yeah. The fact that the Rams, the Pats won the first Super Bowl in New Orleans,

now the Rams beating New Orleans for the Pats to help set up the Pats-Rams Super Bowl, only this time instead of New Orleans, it's a little bit down in Atlanta. Here's the other thing that we forgot to mention during the Saints-Rams game. If the Saints win, they go to Atlanta for the Super Bowl. This would be the worst thing that ever happened to Atlanta football fans.

If they hadn't lost the super bowl where they're up 28 to three, other than that, that's rude. I'm just being honest. Um, they don't want the saints to come. I feel like they're the Atlanta fans are going to have so much juju going against new Orleans this weekend.

It's almost like the Rams have their fan base. The Patriots, all their fans will be rooting for the Rams and the Chiefs too. And then on top of it, we have the Falcons fans also rooting for the Rams. That's a lot of people rooting. I want to make this little observation. I think Atlanta is now a soccer town. No, come on. They get 80,000. They get 80,000.

They get 81,000 people crammed into that place. Their soccer team won the soccer league this year. People, the Atlanta fans turn on the Falcons so quickly. All my Falcons friends were so disgusted with this season. Wouldn't you be? They had a 28-3 lead. It was the biggest choke in the history of football. That's awful. It's so rude of you. It was the biggest choke in the history of football. That's awful.

It's so rude of you. What was a bigger choke than that? There's 17 plays, and if they made one play, they win. It's terrible. I mean, some people might observe the undefeated Patriots going up against the lowly Giants. If you're looking to rank choke jobs. Yeah, but we kind of got our asses kicked in that game.

The Giants were good in that game the Falcons it was over all they have to do is just run 40 seconds off the play clock every play and don't fuck up

and the game's over they got into the time space continuum they lost track of time Pats Chiefs look it's really hard for me to pick against the Pats

in a playoff game I'm certainly not going to do it with Andy Reid and the rookie QB. And I do think the Pats, as football goes me and a lot of other fans this season in a lot of ways. I think he just wanted to get through the regular season. That makes a lot of sense. I think he did the Golden State Warriors approach of – because watching it week to week, it was like, man, what the hell is going on this year?

Why is he short-arming these throws? Why is he so afraid to get hit? He's just getting old. He's protecting himself. And then in the Chargers game, it was like he came out of the phone booth and was like, oh, there's Tom Brady. So I do wonder if he's just, at this point, they know they're going to win the AFC East and he's just, you know, cares about three games in January and February. And that's his focus. And the rest of them, it's nice to win. There's certain games where he really stepped up, like the KC game.

But for the most part, you know, that's who he is. And, you know, it's funny. They're not a nobody believes in us team. I don't even know how to rule this. Are they a nobody believes in us team when they're telling us they're a nobody believes in us team? And it's like, I think everybody does kind of believe in you. You've won the Super Bowl five times. Did Edelman print those t-shirts?

He did. He did. That's it. You're done. You're cooked. Nobody believes in this. I didn't like that. Yeah, I didn't like that at all.

I feel like at this point with the Belichick-Brady infrastructure, you just have to keep riding it until it's over. What's been a better bet in sports? I agree with that. So will they win? Will they lose? I don't know. But I think this is a coin flip of a game, and I like getting the three points.

What do you think? There is a bunch of historical precedents that does not favor the Patriots and Tom Brady on the road. I can imagine the fact that they've sucked on the road this year. Well, not just this year, but in the playoffs as well. The thing that I think kind of lulls us a little bit, the Patriots don't play a lot of playoff games on the road because they've been so, so dominant over the last 15 years. They've had the good fortune of winning the division and winning the conference and being at home.

It's kind of hard to believe that, like, I think it's the case. They played five playoff games on the road as an underdog in the Tom Brady era. That's not very many games. But they are only two and three against the spread under those circumstances. And they have won and covered only one time in their past five away playoff games.

And that was all the way back, more than 10 years ago, 2006-2007 matchup against the Chargers. Right, and that was lucky. Win and cover. I don't like that. That was a lucky win. More than 10 years ago, 2006-2007 matchup against the Chargers. Right. And that was lucky. One win in cover. I don't like that. That was a lucky win because Brady threw the game-ending. Brady was good, by the way, back then.

I know, but Brady threw the game-ending interception, and then Troy Brown stripped the dude. Or it could have been the game-ending interception. Troy Brown stripped the guy who had the interception. They got the ball back, and they ended up winning. Yeah, it's not great. Look, they lost in Denver twice.

They lost the Indy game in 06. I get it. They're better at home. I just feel like at this point, it's Andy Reid, it's Bill Belichick, it's Tom Brady, it's a rookie

QB, it's probably a cold game, not as Tom Brady. It's a rookie QB. It's probably a cold game, not as cold as we thought it was going to be. It's the matchup I wanted, to be honest. I asked for this matchup a week ago on this podcast. It's a great game, and I don't know who's going to win, so I'm going to take the points, and that's really what it comes down to. That's fine. I think anybody who says, I know what's going to happen,

here's how this is going to play out, I just don't believe them. I think it's going to come down to some gimmick plays, special teams, a tip pass. These teams are even, and the Chiefs have a lot of team speed, which is dangerous. The Pats have a really good secondary, which is good for Mahomes. The Pats have a power running game that I think can give the Chiefs some trouble. They got James White back.

They figured out how to use Gronk as a real asset. Did you see some of the clips of him just blowing people off the line? Yeah, it's incredible, the matchup scheme. And they're going to shorten the game. They're basically going to do a reverse of what the Giants did to them in 07. They're going to try to keep the ball as long as possible and not let Mahomes get into a rhythm. Mahomes is terrifying. I'm going to throw this caveat to you, too, House.

Let me know how you feel about it. My dad and my Uncle Bob and my Uncle Don are coming tomorrow. It's my Uncle Bob's 70th birthday. Diehard Pats fan for 50 years. They're coming out to L.A.? Coming out to L.A. We're all watching the game together. I just don't feel like it's a loss.

I feel like we're swinging the karma of this game somehow. Nephew Kyle's going to be there. Ow! The thing I wanted to wonder, I wanted to hear what the Pats might have up their sleeve for tyreek hill because i just think he's unstoppable and anything that you might do scheme wise leaves you so vulnerable in other areas because of all the weapons like if you double team tyreek and don't let him you know get the touches he's going to get doesn't that come at the expense? The price you have to pay is Travis Kelsey going out

and catching 14 balls for 180 yards and two touchdowns? Yeah, my guess is they're going to try to take away both guys and let the Chiefs try to do three, four, five, six yards a pop at a time. Would be my guess. Like Damian Williams? Yeah. It's like, please, let Damian Williams and fucking Conley and let all these other dudes go to town.

But we're not. But how do you stay? You can't take away both guys. I think that's a pretty tall order. Yeah, I agree with you. Anyway. I don't feel that confident about the game, but I think either team could win, so I'm taking the points.

Here's the one thing. Tell me what's on the menu for the for the simmons men this may tip me one way or the other what's on what are the simmons men convening for this great birthday celebration yeah uh the patriots what what is on the menu uh for for this uh game watching i think i'm gonna have my mom cook oh see so this is the thing this this tips it this now you're convincing me yeah because uh what are we calling her now your mom aunt jammy what are we calling my kids car jammy yeah yeah yeah cooking the italian feast i think that's happening she's so she's making the meatballs she's making the brazil yeah all. So she's making the meatballs. She's making the brajol. Yeah, all that stuff.

She's doing the peppers. Yeah, we have to hose down Kyle when he shows up. Kyle's actively rooting against other people not to keep eating because he wants to take more food home. Oh, yeah. I clean up well at these events. The ziti. She'll make a nice thing of the ziti.

I love the ziti. Yeah, we'll see. We'll see what she has in store for us. It's pretty good, right? If that's what you do, then I have to go for the Patriots because I have to go for the jammy Italian feast. My Uncle Bob, one of his best friends, college roommate, George McGowan, used to run the clock at the old Sullivan Stadium

before it became Gillette and whatever the hell it is now. And I'm here to tell you firsthand that the whole thing about the scorekeeper kind of twisting a little bit to get the home team an extra second or so when we need it is 100% true. Because our man George was a huge bats fan working the clock. He found a couple seconds here and there. Yeah, he'd find a second here and there in his day. But the Chiefs probably have their version of that.

Look, it's going to be a tough game. It's going to be a sea of red. Mahomes is fantastic. They have two terrifying offensive weapons and a couple good pass rushers, and they looked awesome in that Colts game last week. Awesome. So I don't think it's going to be easy, but I don't know, man.

That Pats-Rams thing just keeps hanging over my head. It just feels there's a certain symmetry to it. I hope it comes to pass. It's a great story. I think we're going to end up with a great story, whatever the matchup is. I agree. It's very rich. It's a very juicy playoff.

Congratulations to the NFL for getting perfect parity once again. I agree. You can tweet House at at House from DC. Help him name the golf podcast for 2019. A pleasure. As always, House, talk to you soon. Thanks, buddy.

All right, we're going to throw it to Aaron Sorkin. Before we do that, the new Microsoft Surface Pro 6 can help you get things done, whether you're on the field or running a business. Take Brian Arakpo and Michael Griffin, two former NFL teammates, who have opened a cupcake shop with the Surface Pro. They can do everything they need, from setting schedules to creating promotions for social media and designing new flavors. Plus, it's light, super fast, and has a great battery life.

Brian and Mike are approving. You can tackle all your passions with the power and speed of the new Surface Pro 6. And since we're here, check out the Ringer social platforms, our YouTube, at Ringer, our Instagram also has Ringer in the title, but we have been doing a bunch of fun stuff. One of the things we did today, actually, we watched the new John Wick trailer. I hadn't seen it. Chris Ryan hadn't seen it.

Chase Serrano hadn't seen it. We went into Chris Ryan's office and we videotaped ourself having basically a movie orgasm of watching John Wick 3. I knew nothing that was in it. There's a couple surprises in the trailer that we were shocked by. But you can check that out on our Twitter feed and check out all the great stuff we're doing, including NBA Desktop, Slow News Day, and a whole bunch of other stuff.

That is all on the Ringers social platforms. All right, let's get to Aaron Sorkin. Here we go. What an honor. Aaron Sorkin is here. Great to be here. I don't even know how to ID you. I feel like you've been in my life for like 30 plus years now.

That's really nice. You've been in my life as well. Oh, I appreciate that. I really enjoyed listening to you. I remember, I guess Few Good Men was the first one, but I remember when that was coming out, early 90s. A movie poster really mattered back then. It was like, Cruise and Nicholson and Demi Moore are going to be in a movie together?

What the hell? It was great. And that was my first movie. And I adapted it for my first play. I was a kid and lightning struck. I couldn't believe it. So you write a play and eventually it turns into a movie with probably the two biggest movie stars we had at the time.

Yeah. What happened was, well, stars we had at the time. Yeah. What happened was, well, first of all, the play got done, which was unusual enough. It's such a big cast. I was in my mid-20s. It's hard doing new plays. It's especially hard doing them when you've never heard of the guy who wrote it. But the play got done. And Nicole Kidman, who was Mrs. Tom Cruise at the time,

came to see the play, called her husband, said, you really should get here. There's a part you're going to want to play. And it all happened that fast. When you wrote the part of Caffey, did you have like a Cruise type person in mind? Like, do you think of actors when you're writing characters or no?

I'm always the first person to play these parts. I'm playing every part, the men, the women. or no i'm always the first person to play these parts i'm i oh it's always yeah i'm it's i'm playing every part the men the women um i'm jumping up around jumping around in my office uh playing all the parts so uh the first time an actor is actually cast it's a little bit of an adjustment for you feel jealous yeah uh that it's that it's not me playing the part but um but listen by the time tom played the part three other people had me playing the part. But listen, by the time Tom played the part, three other people had already played the part on Broadway. But, you know, obviously he was great in the movie.

I loved working with him. Working with Jack Nicholson is something I'll never forget. The whole cast. We did a Rewatchables podcast. We did this podcast called The Rewatchables where we break down movies that people have seen a million times. And we did A Few Good Men. Nicholson's like barely in that movie. It feels like he's in it for two hours.

He's in like four scenes. Right. He shot for two weeks on the movie. That was it. And the whole second week was just the stuff in the courtroom, his testimony. And I looked over one day and Christian Slater had come.

He just wanted, like he had heard that Nicholson was doing this. That's when he was young Nicholson. That's when he was young Nicholson. And I looked over and Christian Slater was mouthing the words along with Nicholson. Yeah, I remember in the research of that, they were saying like they shot Nicholson scenes. I don't remember if it was first or whatever, but then they had to shoot the camera angles of everybody else. And he just kept doing the speech over and over again because he loved it.

Lots of times, yes, you've got to shoot a ton of coverage in a scene like that. Not just Nicholson's close up and medium and wide shots, but you need to cover Tom and to me, and you need to cover Kevin Bacon, you need to cover the jurors, the judge, all the people sitting out in the gallery. So there are a couple of dozen of different camera angles. And with someone like Nicholson, the hour would get late.

Ordinarily, you'd say, you know, Jack, you can go home and a second AD can sit and read it. And Nicholson just kept doing it over and over and said to the director, Rob Reiner, Rob, I just love to act. It's amazing. It's such like a weirdly inspiring story. Yeah. He could have just, he could have had like somebody's nephew come in and sit in the chair

and Nicholson said, nah, I want to do it again. And you know, I think that the vibe that most people get from jack nicholson is that he's and i don't really give give a damn a guy i can phone it in at this point in my life it's exactly the opposite he is a really hard worker he's a total pro he wants to be great uh he doesn't phone anything in i tried not to do a lot of research for this because i like having i like finding out stuff the one thing I couldn't remember was how you got started writing so I did look that up and I had no idea

like you didn't even write really until after college like you wanted to be an actor and I was like how the fuck did this guy didn't write like you weren't writing for your school newspaper and doing all that stuff you just weren't to me until I got out of college

writing was just a chore to be gotten through for a school assignment I just never written for pleasure before. And then there was this one night I was living in, I was sharing a tiny studio apartment about half the size of the room we're in right now. And everyone I knew was out of town. It was one of those nights in New York where it just feels like everybody has been invited to a party you haven't been invited to. Yeah. I didn't have $3 in my pocket. And in this apartment was a semi-automatic typewriter. It's electric keys and a manual return.

And the TV was broken. The stereo was broken. And the only thing to do was to put a piece of paper in that typewriter and start typing and that's the first time just pure boredom pure boredom the first time i wrote for fun was the first time i wrote dialogue uh and uh and loved it and i just i stayed up all night writing and i feel like that night has never ended. See, I really worry about creativity going forward just in America because of all the ways we have

not to be bored now. So you take you in that situation. So what year is that? Like 1980? God, it would have been like 1985 probably. So now 1985 you in 2019. You're just like online. You're probably on some message board or like you're on Tinder.

Like you're not so bored that you're like, I'm going to write some dialogue. You have better options. That's right. Because I worry that boredom, I think, is like the greatest thing you can have sometimes creatively. It's like, ah, fuck. All right. I couldn't agree more. And there are too many.

You're right about this. There are too many easy boredom killers. And, you know, I'm the parent of a teenager, so I've raised a daughter entirely in the digital world. And it's changing our kids. Yeah, I don't, in some ways for the better, but I think in ways like this, like sometimes it's all right to have nothing else to do and to try to force

yourself to do something, whether it's read a book or. I don't know. You should learn that, that, that, yeah, I know it, but, but we're right. First of all, you should learn how to deal with boredom. Then there are ways to overcome boredom, which are a lot more productive than checking out a YouTube video. Nobody's bored anymore because there's always something to do that can at least keep you kind of casually engaged. Yeah. Unless you don't have a phone or the internet. Right. And let's assume most people do uh have a phone on the internet um and then the other thing that's happening is uh our kids are literally becoming chemically addicted to their phones

if you're a gambling addict the moment that's giving you the dopamine rush uh is not when you win it's when the roulette wheel is spinning uh Okay. In that moment, you're about to find out if you won. And the same thing is happening when our kids reach in their pocket to get their phone to see if someone responds to their text, if they have a new like, a new follower, a new friend, that kind of thing. They are getting a chemical rush when they put their hand in their pocket to get their phone. And so they're going to do it all day long. And that's how our kids are chemically addicted to technology. I only want to keep the two old guys talking about how life used to be for two more minutes. Sure.

I worry that everybody's having roughly the same experiences. And as a writer, that's bad. Think about your background. and you go on, you become one of the greatest screenwriters we have. And you have this completely abnormal background that can't be replicated in any way. And now it's like a lot of the people that get into writing, they kind of go through the same farm system. Either they go through the, you know, like the comedy writers,

they all go to Harvard. Or the people that moved to LA and they're screenwriters and they're in the improv groups. But there's people that moved to LA and they were in screenwriters and they're in improv groups. But there's like these buckets that you have to be in. And the abnormal backgrounds seem to win over and over again. The people that didn't do the same traditional paths. And I just hope we keep that.

There's no question about it. I used to actually worry a lot that my childhood had been too normal for for it just wasn't a good recipe for good american writing it turns out my childhood wasn't as normal as i thought it was nobody's channel right um but let's let's continue being two old guys uh uh for a second another problem uh is because i think that there are a lot of problems with social media and that they kind of are drowning any upside that there might be. But another problem is that people are curating their lives now. Yeah.

They're showing you the photographs that they want to show you where they were at the cool party or they were with the cool people. You're not having conversations. You're just kind of posting something witty. Again, we're curating our lives. And it's the best possible version of it. Yeah, exactly. We're sending our representative to be the kind of movie version of us in the real world. And the real world doesn't like that.

I mean, Tommy, I yell at all the time. He's fine. What do you yell at Tommy for? No, no, Tommy's actually good. We like people skills here at The Ringer, but I do think there's a pressure with social media to kind of update people with what's going on in your day because that's what life is like now.

And I just wonder how it's going on in your day because that's what life is like now. And I just wonder how it's going to affect writing going forward. Now, the movie Eighth Grade, which we had Bo Burnham was in here. And I thought that was a really smart movie. And that's basically a lot of what that movie is about, about this character that's so awkward socially. And the one thing she has control over are these social media and Instagram pictures and things like that. It was really interesting. It is a great tool for people who are awkward socially. And in fact, when I wrote The Social Network, a lot of what was behind Mark Zuckerberg's motivation there was he was awkward in the real world, and he built a tool that he needed.

He built a world that he was the mayor of, and he could be his best self. And so that's a nice thing. I get that. Listen, even I, I think I would rather email someone than talk to them on the phone. I'm just going to be better at it. You know, I'm just going to be more comfortable. But that's in moderation. And I feel like we've gone way past the whole line of moderation. What do you think is better? Let's go positive. What do you think is better in 2019 for a writer than it was in 1985. Or 1993. The software Final Draft. That's about it. There's a great piece of writing software

called Final Draft that, you know, where we used to have to use whiteout and staple things and scotch tape them. Now you can move words around with ease. I'm 99% sure I'm right about this. I think I had somebody on my podcast and I'm almost positive.

It was Paul Thomas Anderson who said he still writes in word doc. And then has somebody translate it. Cause he just never could get used to final draft. You know, I'm not surprised. I used to do that too. I, I wrote,

it wasn't an award doc, but it was in a piece of, this was during the West Wing, antiquated software called MacWrite. And the writer's assistants would always translate it into Final Draft. And they would beg me, just, we'll teach you how to use Final Draft. It's really easy. I'll just say, I don't want to, you know, I've got like muscle memory of where my fingers go and I don't want to like have to be thinking about the keys when I'm writing. And then they finally lied to me. I got whatever the newest – I've always had Macs,

and so whatever the newest Mac, the G4, it's something that had just come out. And so I got it, and they told me, oh, you know what? Your software doesn't work on this new Mac, so sorry. You've got to – You've just got gotta suck it up and do it they just they liked me and it was it was smart i'm glad that they did yeah i really smart move now so when few good men took off what happened to your life because you had american president like a year or two later right i met american president a year or two later uh here's

what happened to you like because that was like the era of the early 90s, hot screenwriters. Right. Premier Magazine writing about the, like, so you're right in the middle of that all of a sudden. Yeah, it was pretty cool. And, well, here's one of the things that happened. Well, first of all, two things happened. One was I had never thought about being a screenwriter or a television writer. Once I started writing, I was just going to be a playwright.

That's really all I knew. I watched movies and television shows as much as anybody else. But I wasn't watching them as if I were a student, the way I would watch plays. But a few good men took me out to L.A. to do the adaptation. And I was going to come right back and do my next play, but I stayed and did another movie and then another and then a TV series. And that was your life. That was my life. The other thing that happened was when I was 25, I tried cocaine for the first time.

And I remember thinking it's a good thing I don't have money because this could be a real problem. And I got money. And it became a real problem. So I lost my 30s basically to cocaine addiction. I was a pretty high functioning addict. I was able to write while I was doing it. Were your 30s, so you're saying like the mid to late 90s that time or later?

Yeah, I went to rehab in 1995. Okay. And then Sports Night was after that though. Your 30s, so you're saying like the mid to late 90s, that time or later? Yeah, I went to rehab in 1995. Okay. And then Sports Night was after that, though. Sports Night was four years after that. So it was almost like the Hollywood cliche of a guy hits it big and can't handle it for a little bit and then figures it out. It's absolutely that cliche, yes. And my recommendation is don't try it.

It's the easiest way to not become addicted to it. Yes. And my recommendation is don't try it. That's the easiest way to not become addicted to it. Yeah. So American president, you went back to the president character two different times in your career. So you do American president first, which by the way, has aged really well and it's kind of, and I think. I haven't gone back to look at it in a while. Has it held up? So the other one is Dave. Right.

Both were president's movies, but you know, there's something about that era of the 90s where there was still some sort of innocence to it. Yeah. That was captured in those movies, right? You're right. The president could still be a great person. It's not the Nixon hangover. There's actually, this could be a good job

with the right person. Yes. There was also some mystery about the White House. It was a palace we'd never been inside before. So both with the American president, Dave, and then later with the West Wing, anytime you saw the president just like being a person, being a father, being a friend, it was kind of cool, you know? Oh, like that's how he gets his toothpaste. That's how it works behind the scenes. Listen, the whole first five minutes, the opening five minutes of the West Wing was based entirely on nobody knowing

what the acronym POTUS stood for. The audience couldn't know what that stood for. The opening wouldn't work and no one knew what it stood for then so you when these things are done you don't go back and think about them or try to learn from them or anything that just kind of happened i i i do try to learn from them uh in the in the moment um it's hard for me to go back and look at them. Sometimes I do because I'll be asked to, you know, we'll hit a West Wing anniversary or something, and I'll be asked to look at a particular episode that we'll be talking about. And listen, there are times that I'm actually very pleased when I think, gee, you know, that one worked. Yeah.

That was great. But I've never written anything that I didn't wish I could have back and write again. Really? Nothing? Nothing.

Social network's really good. I appreciate that. Thanks. We did a rewatchables on that too and we, probably the best movie of the decade.

Ah, that's awfully nice of you. Because it's, it's the most rewatchable. It was the best in the moment. The actors are the best. I think it's taken on a differentable. It was the best in the moment. The actors are the best. I think it's taken on a different meaning now with what's happened in the last four or five years.

It has. I think it's the most important movie of the decade. Well, that's awfully nice and generous of you to say that. I had a great time writing it. I had a great time making it. David Fincher, the director, just headed out of the park. I remember finding, I don't remember when somebody was like, it's Sorkin and Fincher.

It was like, oh, they got the big guns for this. This is good. It was a big gun and a half. But Fincher's amazing. The first scene in the social network, which is Jesse Eisenberg and Rooney Mara sitting at a bar. It's a bad date.

It's not going to end well for Jesse. We, we shot, he did 99 takes of that over two nights, 99 takes of an, it's not a scene that's complicated to shoot. You just, you get the two shot and then the over and the over and a couple of sizes. But he, because of all the language, what David wanted, and I really appreciated this, was the repetition. He just wanted them doing it over and over and over just to casualize the language.

He didn't want them giving the performance they were giving in the shower before they came to the set. Which is probably a problem with some of the stuff you write, right? You write these great meaty dialogue things that people, the actors probably love doing. It can get very operatic. Yeah. It can teeter on melodrama.

So David would knock that out right away. 99 takes, we begged him, just do one more. So the story will be 100. And he said, no, I got it. 99's almost better. You're right. Was that the first scene you wrote of the movie? Yeah. I've never written anything out of order.

Really? Yeah. Yeah. I can't, I've, it's an OCD thing. I have to go. Well,

I remember one of the things with you is you never like to plan too far ahead. Right. Which is the same way. That's how I've always written my columns. I sometimes, not that i write that much anymore but i would always i'd have a basic idea in my head but not really know it was going

to happen till your fingers start moving so that's what you do it's kind of yeah and with with uh with series television um other showrunners you know they've broken they in the writing staff they've broken the whole season uh at the beginning of the year. They know what the whole season arc is going to be, so they know where you've got to be by Christmas. And so this is where we have to be by Thanksgiving, and this is where we have to be by Columbus Day. And I've never been able to do that. I would write an episode only every once in a while knowing what was going to happen, a little of what was going to happen in the next episode.

But most of the time I'd finish an episode. I'd feel great for three minutes because I got a script finished. And on television, all it means is you haven't started the next one yet. And then it's just gnawing at you. Yeah. It's hanging over your head. Well, back then, by the way, I mean, this current era would have been so much better for the West Wing for you. You would have had, you would have had 13 episode seasons.

How many were you doing per year? We would do 22. 22 is insane. Yeah, but I Love Lucy would look at 22 and say, you guys are wimps. We did 36. 22, like really dense one hour shows is like. I know. That's why you lasted four years.

There's no way you can do that anymore. It's, it's tough. I, I, I admire anyone who does any television show. And there was actually the sports night was two years. And the second year of sports night was the first year of the West wing. So I was writing a sports night and a West Wing every week. Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah. I'm glad you went backwards because I want to get to social network.

I want to go a little chronologically. Sure. Sports Night. Sports Night was the first year. American President's a hit, right? American President's a hit. You got to work with Michael Douglas at the tail end of the Michael Douglas apex. Like a legendary eight-year run for him.

Sure. I think, listen, he won a Golden Globe last night. I don't think the Michael Douglas apex has ended. But I got to work with- It's a fourth 30-year apex. He's a great actor. He's a great producer. And I love him.

To me, it's like, if he was an athlete, he would be the most, he's like the Hakeem Olajuwon- That's exactly right. Of actors. He's like, he was an athlete, he would be the most, he's like the Hakeem Olajuwon of actors. He's like, go look at his IMDb. It's like home run, home run, triple, home run, home run for like nine years. Yes. And don't forget, he produced One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Yeah, and China Syndrome.

Yeah. So, yes, I got to work with Michael and with Annette Bening and Michael J. Fox too. Oh yeah. He's really good in that movie. He's terrific. I also think there's a great conversation that I've actually had with people about if you could have a movie president to be the actual president,

who would you pick? Douglas is in like the semifinals. I don't know if he wins. I'm really glad to hear that. Kevin Kline, Douglas, Martin Sheen's obviously in there. I also am partial to Jeff Bridges in The Contender. I love- He's really good in that.

I love Jeff Bridges in The Contender. I love the character. I love his performance. I love the whole movie. That was kind of on your corner a little bit, another president thing. They should have gotten your permission. Yes. No, no, no, no.

Yeah, I was working my side of the street a little bit, but did really well. At least give me a heads up. On my side of the street. So I'd done The American President, and I needed a new idea for a movie. And while I was writing The American President, I was living in a hotel. Yeah. And going to bed very late at night, more like very early in the morning. I'd turn on ESPN, and there would be the loop of last night's sports center.

Oh yeah. Like Kilborn and those guys. Kilborn, um, uh, Oberman, uh, uh,

Stu Scott. Sure. Um, Linda Cohn. She's still there. Yeah. Uh, anyway,

um, I just thought it was a really good TV show. And, you know, the This Is Sports Center ads were getting to me, too. And it really felt like, boy, that would be like a great place to work. That'd be a great place to meet your best friend, to meet your girlfriend. It just seems like a really fun place to work. And so in thinking about what my next movie might be, I was thinking about a sort of broadcast news, but at ESPN type show.

I was interested to see if that played a factor in it, bro, because that's like eight years earlier, probably. Yeah, it's- And one of the all-timers. Exactly. And for me, the first time I kind of noticed that a movie can be driven by good writing. Yeah. I mean, I should have noticed it decades before. Jim Brooks wasn't the first person to write a good movie.

But it was just the first time I thought, yeah, I would have loved to have been the guy who wrote this. So broadcast news was a big deal for me. So now I'm thinking about broadcast news, but at ESPN. And I said to my agent, but all the ideas I'm having are really short stories. They're not a long arc. And he said, well, you're describing a television series. Yeah, we have this thing called a television. Right.

They show shorter shows. Why don't I set up a meeting with you and the folks at ABC? So I said, sure. And again, they're used to somebody coming in and being able to describe all the characters and they have an outline of the first eight episodes and that kind of thing. I wasn't able to do any of that. All I was able to do is tell them exactly what I told you. I want to do a show set behind the scenes at an ESPN type place. I don't know anything else about it. You're just going to have to let me go off and write it. And they did. And then you went and spent time with, like, didn't you go to Bristol? Yeah, I hung out. I hung out in Bristol and that was great. Uh, they were very welcoming. Uh, it was fun place to just to hang,

to watch them, uh, put a show together. It's still kind of magic to me, uh, how the, how the clips get edited and how the copy gets written in time for, uh, for that broadcast. Well, and also pre-internet it was was beginning of the internet. Right. But it was, that show had so much more weight because you come home at two in the morning from a bar and it was like, did the Celtics win? That's right. Did anything happen?

Wait, there was a trade? And you would just find out all these things on SportsCenter. You know what? I think it still has a lot of weight and it's still, for me, it works as comfort food.

It's still- And I think they realize that now because they kept trying to mix it and change it. Now it's just like, eh, let's show highlights. Guess what people like? Highlights of things. Right. Let's take a quick break to talk about SimpliSafe. Here is a timely stat for you. Almost half of us make a New Year's resolution every single year, whether it's to get healthier, save money, get organized. We start out with great intentions, but a month later we slip a little, then a little more, it happens to the best of us. Well, one resolution is worth sticking to this year. Keep your home and family safe.

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Definitely not, definitely not. Well, maybe this is the year to fix that. Go to simplisafe.com slash BS to get started. That is SimpliSafe with two I's, simplisafe.com slash BS. So all that was great, but I still didn't have an idea. You know, something's got to happen in an episode of television. Something has to happen in the pilot.

And I had no ideas until my best friend was going through a divorce. And he had, his son was eight years old at the time. And he came to me really sad one day because the night before, I think Charles Barkley had thrown somebody through the glass window of a bar. Am I getting this right?

And my friend said, you know, Jake, his son, Jake and I were really starting to bond over sports. And now with my not being around so much, who are his male role models going to be? You know, who's going to be there to say, hey, Jake, you shouldn't throw somebody through a plate glass window. And so I had my idea for the first episode of Sports Night. Take the Peter Krause character, have him going through a divorce, have this kind of news come over. And he's sort of at the end of his rope in the pilot episode. You know, he calls himself a PR guy for punks and thugs.

And then bring in the redemptive value of sports. From left field, somebody just does something extraordinary. You know, the thing that makes us watch a 10,000-meter race, something we wouldn't normally watch. But if you tell us, if you, Bill Simmons, tells us a story about it before we watch it, we're going to watch it like it's the seventh game of the World Series. What was ESPN's reaction to that show?

I think ESPN liked the show. It seemed like they were okay with it. Yeah. I mean, there were ESPN people who reached out to me and said they liked it. Oberman was a fan. Stuart Scott. Linda Cohen, I mentioned, was not a fan. Oh, interesting.

And I'm not sure why, but corporately, I assume that they were... Did you get some John Walsh time when you were researching that show? Yeah. He was my mentor at ESPN. Oh, is that right?

Yeah. That was, I mean, interesting guy. Yeah. He actually would have been a good character for the show because he could barely he could barely see but he was the most important

TV person they had for 12 years he would have been and I imagine that one day there will be some sort of a movie about

you know because it all started with two guys who wanted to broadcast Connecticut women's softball right

they've talked about I mean my friend Jim Miller did the oral history of it. And I think they optioned it in a movie, but to try to do like the first five years of it, basically. Yeah. Of how crazy it was. The other thing that happened with that show,

they stuck a laugh track on it for like two-thirds of the year. That was like your first where you really flipped out on a network or a company, right? It's true. I'm not sure if I flipped out, but here's what happened. I remember rooting for you because I was always on the side of the artist. I appreciate that. I'm like, I love that this guy's going at them

about this laugh track thing. Listen, if this had happened today, of course there'd be no laugh track on the show. No, that's like the prototypical single camera show. Yes. But ABC was concerned about Sports Night because it didn't really look or feel or sound like a sitcom, like a half hour show. And, you know, I mentioned SportsCenter is comfort food. Sitcoms are supposed to act that way too. Television has a different relationship with its audience than movies or plays do. It's a much more intimate relationship than it has.

It comes into your home. Often you watch it when you're alone, when you're cooking dinner, when you're going to bed. And a big reason why you watch Seinfeld or Friends is because you just want to hang out with those people. The same way I wanted to hang out with Oberman and Dan Patrick and those guys. And so you want that familiar feel, that three joke a page feel, the sound of that laugh track. And those laughs are like were recorded for the Danny Thomas show. Those are dead people laughing, not jokes. And so ABC wanted to do what they could to make this kind of unfamiliar animal more familiar and uh so they they wanted to use the laugh track and uh i we um it was a big battle uh it was chronicled in a long story in uh in the new yorker i don't remember that yeah uh okay go back and read that uh yeah and read that it's a cool story and looking back it's funny the way I

folded but they had also they wanted us to shoot it in front of a studio audience once you shoot the show in front of a studio audience you have to use a laugh track you don't have a choice anymore because you're going to be using different takes from different shots and the laughs are going to be uneven

so you've got to juice them and smooth it out. I didn't want to use a live audience because, again, this wasn't, you know, a show like whether it's All in the Family or Everybody Loves Raymond or Cheers. It's a proscenium set. You're basically watching a one-act play. And the audience can sit there as if they were watching The Tonight Show. Our set, most of it, the audience couldn't see. It was deep, and you wanted the camera to go way in there. You didn't want it to stay at the edge of the proscenium. So I didn't want the studio audience. I didn't want the laugh track. A lot

of the laughs weren't bam-bam laughs. They'd be inside of lines. They'd be something you'd smile about, something you'd think about, that kind of thing. And so I would, when we went into the mixing studio to put the laugh track in, I would laugh it as little as possible until by the last episode of the first season. In the second season, they finally said, uncle, they said, you can get rid of the laugh track. Just a smattering of laughter by the last episode. By the last episode, it sounds like three guys on the crew couldn't quite help themselves.

They just, they had to laugh at that joke and then it's gone. And then in the second season, we're clean. You know what you said about how TV, the familiarity of a TV show is one and then it's gone. And then in the second season we're clean. You know what you said about how TV, the familiarity of a TV show is one of the reasons it works. I was just thinking about this because The Sopranos

was on on Friday night. They're doing some kind of marathon. I can't get away from my TV now. Yeah, it was, so my wife turned the TV on and she was kind of half watching and it was like the ninth episode.

I'm like, Sopranos? What season is that? She's like, I don't know. It's just on. And we watched five straight episodes. I know. And she said something that I thought was really interesting. My wife occasionally will have some real insight. She was just like,

I miss these people. They were my friends. And I was like, you're right. I miss them too. Like Pauly Walnuts was my friend. And then he's gone. That's how you watch TV. And that's a good thing. You just need to be mindful of it when you're making a TV show. Well, people felt that way with The West Wing, right? I mean, that was... Yeah. So you had two opposite experiences. You had Sports Night, which was

the critically acclaimed, oh, what a tragedy, it didn't last longer. And then West Wing, which just becomes one of the biggest shows in the world. Now, let me just say about Sports Night and any tragic element, it never felt tragic to me. I understand that in broadcast television and in the world of we're doing this to make money uh that it didn't get enough people and we didn't make enough episodes i meant more that you didn't get to do six years of it right i felt like uh doing 45 episodes of it for an audience and by the way a a small audience

back then not enough to stay which would never be the biggest show on TV. Exactly. We'd be the highest rated show on ABC right now. But for a guy who, you know, cut his teeth in a church basement in Soho, where if you got 99 people in there, that meant you were sold out. You know, doing 45 episodes for 7 million people every Tuesday night felt incredibly fulfilling. And getting to write exactly what you wanted to write, characters that you cared about. So that's fun, but then you also have West Wing, which becomes a monster. Right.

West Wing happened very much by accident. I was, again, I hadn't thought of doing television. This was roughly happening at the same time that my agent was saying, gee, you should meet the ABC people. He said, I want you to have lunch with John Wells. John Wells is a producer. At the time he had ER, he had China Beach. He was known as a very successful producer of high-end drama. China Beach underrated.

I thought it was, didn't it win a bunch of Emmys? Yeah, but just like historically, it's just kind of gone now. I agree. I was like, that show was really good. Yeah, and it absolutely should be included in what was the renaissance. It isn't?

No, can't stream it. That should be correct. It's got to be fixed. Yeah, absolutely should be fixed. So I thought, yes, I'll have lunch with John Wells. I have no plans to do a television show, but I'm happy to have lunch with him if he wants to. And the night before that lunch, some friends of mine were over to my house at dinner. And I told one of them that I was going to be having lunch with John Wells the next day.

He said, oh, you're going to do television. Great. And I said, no, no, I'm not. I'm just having lunch. I'm not going to be doing TV. And he saw the American president poster on my wall, and he said, you know what? Make a good series. That.

But forget about the widowed president and the romance with the lobbyists. Just like stories about the president's senior staff. I said, really, I'm not going to be doing a television series. And I went into the lunch the next day, immediately saw this wasn't a, hey, how are you? It's nice to meet you lunch. Because John was there with these executives from Warner Brothers Television and all these CAA agents. And I sat down and John said-

They had a suitcase of cash. John, I don't know if it was a suitcase, but John said, so what do you want to do? And instead of saying, I think there's been a misunderstanding. I didn't come here to pitch anything. I just wanted to meet you. I'm a fan. I said, I want to do a show about senior staffers at the White House.

I just, the only thing I could remember from the dinner the night before. And John reached his hand across the table and said, we have a deal. And I thought, oh my God, what did I just do? What just happened? Yeah. Wait, so who's the friend who pointed out the poster? Kiva Goldsman, who hadn't yet won the Academy Award for writing A Beautiful Mind. This is amazing.

I did not know the story. Yep. So now he gets to brag that he talked you into doing the West Wing, which won 100 Emmys. And I'm sure I owe him money. At least dinner. Yeah. Yes. So I wrote the West Wing and Sports Night pilots at the same time, or back to back.

I wrote Sports Night and then West Wing. And fortunately, NBC, that particular administration, NBC, wasn't interested in the West Wing. Shows about Washington had never worked. Politics had never worked. This was a TV show where people use words like Democrat and Republican, which again, going along with the these people need to be your friends school of selling a TV show. If you look back at TV shows from the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, and even into the 90s. Nobody lives anywhere. Everybody lives in Springfield, right?

That's where the Simpsons got it from. The father is a businessman. That's all we know about him. They don't have a religion. Or an architect, in Mr. Brady's case, yeah. Businessman, architect. Sometimes they're in advertising. Ad sales.

They do not have a religion. They are white. Nothing that could possibly alienate the audience. They would never take a crack at the secretary. None of that stuff. No, no, no, no, no. They're just straight edge heroes. And by the way, even if you look at Seinfeld, it's supposed to be the Jerry Seinffeld we know the jerry seinfeld who does the tonight show and plays club dates yeah but he's still living in a 1500 a month apartment um uh he still

has those kinds of problems his problems aren't i only have an 80 car garage for my car collection what do i do with these two new ones uh So anyway, the West Wing did have things in it that could possibly alienate an audience. And NBC put it in a drawer, which was fine with me because suddenly I was the executive producer and showrunner of a TV show, Sports Night. Yeah, you couldn't have done two shows.

That's new. Even though a year later, that's exactly what would happen. They, Don Allmire, who I'm sure you know. Don Allmire, legend. Yeah, left NBC and was replaced by a man named Scott Sassa, who would then be replaced by Jeff Zucker. Scott Sassa took the West Wing out of a drawer, said, we're doing this now. Also, really nice time to be on NBC.

They're in the middle of like a five, six-year run of they're doing better than anybody. And now they're plugging the shit out of this show's coming. It's yours. That's right. It was actually the perfect moment, to be honest. It was the Tiffany Network. It was the classy place to be. They had all these hits.

And a year into the West Wing, they would lose the NFL and they would lose Seinfeld. So suddenly we were – they badly – they needed to love us a lot. And ER, Clooney is gone. Clooney is gone. They had friends though. Friends was a monster. They still had friends. We were on the soundstage.

West Wing was on the soundstage right next to Friends. Really? Where was that? On the Warner Brothers lot. Oh my God. Yeah. We were on stage 17 and they were on stage 23, which you'll just have to trust me. They're right next to each other. But we were, you know, we, we, everybody on that

show worked from before sunrise to, to midnight. And friends, they were in their seventh, eighth, ninth season, something like that. Monday mornings, we'd see six very expensive cars parked in their spaces. Those cars would not be back until Thursday. Yeah. Their stand-ins were learning the block. They just knew how to do the show so well that they could come to the table read

and then come to Thursday's camera blocking rehearsal and do the show that night for an audience. How much luck do you need with something like West Wing? Obviously, you had a great idea. You had, you know, one of the best writers writing it. Martin Sheen, you caught him at the right time. But like how many ways can something like that go wrong from when it's happening to when it's actually when I'm watching on television? What are the biggest obstacles?

You know, there's a great line that Lawrence Kasdan wrote in the movie Body Heat. Classic. Yeah, right. Bill Hurt has this scene with Mickey Rourke, who is, Mickey Rourke is a career criminal. And Bill Hurt needs the boathouse burned down. I won't give away too much. And he needs basically to learn from Mickey Rourke how to commit arson. And Mickey Rourke is saying, hey, listen, you've done favors for me.

Why don't you just let me do this for you? And Bullard's, no, no, no, no, no. I don't want anybody. I'll do it. Just teach me how to do it. And Mickey Rourke says, listen, any serious crime, there are about 50 things that can go wrong.

And if you can think of 25 of them, you're a genius. And I feel that way about doing a television show or a movie or a play. Except there are 50 things that can go wrong. And if you can think of 25 of them, you're a genius. There are another hundred things that have to go right. And if you can think of half of them, you're a genius.

And with the West Wing, what went so very right on the West Wing was the casting. I was going to say, you almost like threw a perfect game with the casting. Usually there's like the one stinker in there, like, ah, man, and then they'll write that person out within two years. No, you know-

The level of actors is really crazy. Allison Janney, Richard Schiff, Brad Whitford, Dulé Hill, Rob Lowe, John Spencer, who passed away a few years ago, and Martin, and Janelle Maloney, and the whole guest cast. We were really lucky there. There's also a common denominator with the West Wing and Sports Night, and that's Tommy Shlomi. Yeah. and that's Tommy Shlami, who was the other executive producer, the principal director of both. Directed the pilots, directed, if you have a favorite episode,

chances are he directed it. I saw him a month ago. Oh, yeah? And I told him, like, just fucking do the West Wing again. Just cash, like, the biggest check of the decade. This is the greatest time ever to do this show. again. Just cash like the biggest check of the decade. This is the greatest time ever to do this show. You could obviously change the

president to maybe reflect certain things. If either he or I had a good idea of how to do it, even just, you know, nine episodes or something, we would do it. Hold on, Netflix is on the phone. Wait, how much are you offering? $700 million? Okay. We are both. We are all. Helicopter to is on the phone. Wait, how much are you offering? $700 million? Okay.

We are both. We are all. Helicopter to and from the set? What? All of us involved with the West Wing are very protective of the memory of the show. We want people to keep talking about it the way you're talking about it now and not say, boy, if they had just not done that.

That is true. You didn't have that. It would be an interesting reboot. By the way, it's been 20 years. 1999, right? Yeah. I can't believe it. When was it? September?

Yeah. That's crazy. President Sheen came into our lives. Holy cow. It will be 20 years. Because that was the two big things that year

were The Sopranos and West Wing. Sopranos were on a year before us. No, Sopranos was 99 because that's why they're doing the marathons. Oh, you're right. Yeah. You're right. But it was the beginning of 99.

Yes. Yeah, yeah. That's right. They started in- And both of those shows complete. Your show changed network TV. And that show, I feel like cable was never the same after The Sopranos. That's right

certainly it played a big part in making a company called HBO what show just out of curiosity are you the most jealous of? you're like fuck I wish I had written that um god alright

you have to answer this you can't get out of it I'm this. You can't get out of it. I'm not going to try to get out of it. All right. But I'm going to name a few shows, not just one. Okay. Wait, you're going to hurt somebody's feelings? There's got to be one that you're the most jealous of. Okay.

I don't know if I'd call it jealousy. Yeah. But I will tell you that The Office is a work of genius on so many levels. It's really hard to be hip and have heart at the same time. Yeah. Really hard. And also the show, it wasn't just the five or six principal characters. I had a cast of 20 people that you cared about. Yeah. At the center was a tour de force performance from Steve Carell. Right. And the writing simply doesn't

get better than that. So I'm going to say The Office, but I'm also going to say Mad Men. I think was great. Well, I'll say that. There are other shows that I love too,

but The Office and Mad Men. Right now, the shows that are on right now that I'm I'll use your language. I'm jealous of it, but mostly I just love watching them. Silicon Valley is fantastic. Barry, okay?

Barry. Barry is awesome. Everybody knew Bill Hader was phenomenally talented, right? Yeah. You did not know that he had that club in his bag. That he could,

I mean, it's funny, he's doing a comedy, but that he could play, I mean, it's funny, he's doing a comedy, but that he could play, I mean, it's a serious dramatic role that he's playing. He's playing a guy with PTSD. I got to know him 10 years ago. He was on my podcast

and then he'd come on a couple of times and we had a couple of dinners together. And he was always, I got to say, I wasn't totally surprised by Barry. Cause like he's, he was like a huge Klaus Kinski fan. He had this whole weird,

super nerdy dramatic side to him. But I was surprised that the show was as good. Me too. Like the odds of that happening where it actually, the show's also phenomenal. I'm not, I'm not surprised that, that Bill is a,

is a good actor. People who are funny in such a smart way, whether it's Bill or Jonah Hill or Seth Rogen or Sacha Baron Cohen or Melissa McCarthy, if you see the movie she's out in now. That movie was good. I liked that movie. Why am I spacing on the name?

It's like, it's an apology. How can you ever forgive me? Yeah, yeah. Can you ever forgive me? Can you ever forgive me? That's what it's called. That was good. People who are that funny in such a smart way,

it's because they're really good actors. They're not doing something different when they're doing these roles. That's why you tried to tap into Matthew Perry. Yes. Yeah. And Matthew Perry is one of them. Just a really good actor.

Yeah. And so I knew that Bill Hader was going to be a really good actor. I just didn't know that he would, he could go there. And so successfully. So, so, uh, West wing becomes a phenomenon and it wasn't sustainable. How do you only last four years? Um, well the show lasted seven. I don't know. I know that four years. How did you only last four? Well, it, it, uh, first of all, before I get to that, let me, let me say, I, I think that for four years I had the best job in show business. Uh, I, I loved that group of people. I got to write exactly the show, uh, I wanted to write. Uh, I was, I always try and be in, in any project

that I do, I always try to be the least talented person involved. And I was pretty successful with the West Wing in doing that. But there comes a point, you know, I wrote 88 episodes of the show. And you start to wonder, is this fair? Is my 80, one of these is going to be my 89th best episode, right? Won't someone else's best episode be better than my 89th best episode, right? Won't someone else's best episode be better than my 89th best? And don't I owe it to the cast and crew, to Warner Brothers and to NBC to have the show? Maybe I've used all the words I know in every order

that I know how to use them. And it just felt like the right time to, I just want to not overstayay my welcome so in the 2019 parameters what does the west wing look like like the idea you had 20 years ago if you're doing it now would you want to do like 12 episode is it on cable is it on network what is like the dream place for it uh listen i i suppose cable would be better because of the freedom that it gives you in terms of, you know, there were a couple of times just in terms of language. There are a couple of times when I wished Bartlett because the president, because I do think that the best moments on the show are when you see that this isn't a king, it's a man, this is a guy with a temp job who can get as frustrated as anybody else,

when I wanted him to say, God damn it, which you can't say on network TV. And the shorter schedule would have been nice. But by and large, because I've been asked in the era of Trump, if you were doing the West Wing now, what would you do different? And the answer is nothing. I wouldn't change a thing because here's what the West Wing was about. By and large, in popular culture, our leaders, our elected officials, they're portrayed either as Machiavellian or as dolts. And this was going to be a show where they were highly competent people who you may disagree with their position on this particular issue. But there's no doubting that they woke up this morning with our best interest in heart,

that public service is a calling for them, and that they are hyper-competent. They may slip on banana peels once in a while, but it's always going to be while reaching for the stars. There was no cynicism in the show at all. And I think that right now, to see a group of very competent people who feel that way would be like a cold drink of water.

You had to get to 22 episodes every year, even back then. What was the right number? You think it would have been like 15, 16? Did you always feel like you had 22 episodes of content that you wanted to get out? No, never. Which is why. That's why now is better, right? Yes.

Yeah. Now, in terms of the number of episodes, you have to do without a doubt. Because now you get to do exactly the right. Like, I look at something like Breaking Bad, which actually got better in the last couple of years. And it was like, that dude said everything he wanted to say and nothing was padded. That's right. You didn't have to worry about some number he had to get to. Yeah.

You also have more time to work on each episode, whether, you know, Breaking Bad, Sopranos, those shows. You can write an entire season, then shoot that season, and then do post for that whole season, making adjustments along the way as you learn stuff. And that's nice, as opposed to the way we would make a television show on NBC, which is like literally the moment it comes out of the printer,

it's being run over to the stage. We shot my first drafts. There wasn't a time for a second draft. Shoot it. You got about 12 days in post, and then it goes on the air. What was your favorite moment of the West Wing? Your single favorite where you're just like doing the Fred Flintstone punch on the bicep.

You're just so fired up how it turned out. Boy. Because that show, I think the legacy of that show for me, other than the cast, was just the show had a lot of moments that were kind of in Delbo. It was right around the time, and I think The Sopranos was like this too. It was right around the time people were starting to figure out it's just the show itself can't just be great,

but you also have to kind of leave you with the one awesome three-minute stretch of something. Yeah. So I think that the three minute stretches of something that I'll remember, we did our second season finale, it was called Two Cathedrals. And there was a scene, there's a scene where it's shot in the National Cathedral where Martin Sheen is cursing out God. And then at the end of that episode, set to the Dire Straits song, Brothers in Arms. Sounds good.

That's why I brought it up. The Brothers in Arms is like- Yeah, that one- That was like off the charts. That got written actually in a fairly typical way for me, which is I'm completely stuck. I tell my assistant, I'm just going to be driving around in my car for a while.

I drive around in my car. I listen to the music I listened to when I was in high school, because that's still what I like to listen to. And Brothers in Arms came on. I thought, you know, this would be a great piece of music to set a scene to. And then the whole thing started coming to me. And I just reverse engineered it. I worked backwards from there, and it all worked out.

Smart idea. One of the five best possible. I thought Miami Vice was another show that used to do this. It almost like they would take the song and try to figure out what kind of scene to put to it. Michael Mann was really good at putting like many music videos in the middle of Miami Vice. Some weird channel was showing season one and I was watching the other day, and they used a U2 song from the album Before the Joshua Tree that I hadn't heard in forever.

I think it's called October something. And they play the whole song. It's the Dennis Farina episode. And I was just like, wow, this was like 1984. And they knew at the time I had to use music like that. And most people really didn't figure it out until 15 years later. Miami Vice broke a lot of ground. Yeah, absolutely.

Now we're talking about language. It's one of my favorite shows. Just the way it was lit, the way it was shot. It was a groundbreaker. So I want to talk about Studio 60 quick. So I thought the pilot was

one of my favorite pilots of all time. And then what happened? Is that what you know? You caught Perry, who I always thought was, I don't know, one of the most talented actors. Comedy slash has that drama side. You just caught him at the right point in his career. Like it was like, he's not just a friends guy. He can do this too.

And he's like phenomenal in that pilot. Yeah. He's phenomenal doing anything. It was like a career year for him. It was almost like an athlete will have like that MVP season. Yes. He was like at just peak of his powers. We had, he did a guest thing on the West Wing where he, I mean, he did two episodes at the end of my last year there.

And then I think he came back and did a couple more after I'd gone. And I mean, there's another guy. We mentioned him before in the group of actors who are known for being funny. But you shouldn't be surprised that they are other things as well because what they are I mean what Matthew is what Matt Perry is is just a really good actor

and I don't think that he has yet done the best thing he's going to do so what would you do differently about that show looking back it's been 12 years I would write it better I would just be, you know, here's the thing about television. That is better if you're writing a movie or a play.

If I'm writing a screenplay and it's not going well, I've just run into a snowbank, I can call the producer or the studio, whoever is waiting for it, and say, listen, I've just run into a snowbank. I can call the producer or the studio, whoever is waiting for it, and say, listen, I've run into some trouble. I know I said I was going to deliver in June. It'll probably be more like August that you'll get the first draft. In television, you've got hard deadlines. They're the air dates, and you have to meet them. So you have to write even when you're not writing well. Yeah. And that's a tough pill to swallow. And then you have to point a camera at it, and then you have to broadcast it. And with Studio 60, and then later with The Newsroom, I just always felt like I had a pebble in my shoe, that I couldn't get it quite right.

That I would write some good scenes, but I couldn't put together an entire good episode. The way, you know, a basketball team, well, they can't put together four good quarters. Right. Well, it goes back to the thing where you really need a lot of things to go right to get this perfectly. A lot of things to go right. But there was nothing wrong with Studio 60

that couldn't have been solved by better writing. All right. Social network really quick. Because we have to go. I didn't realize you had been solved by better writing. All right. Social network really quick. Okay. I didn't realize you had to leave. No problem. Social network. I went to, I had lunch with a studio head.

I don't know why I'm being, with Stacey Snyder, who right now is the head of Fox, but at the time she was the head of Universal. And she said, I just got this book pitch that you might be interested in. Oh, the Ben Mesrick book? Yes. He hadn't written the book yet, but the publisher was sending the pitch for the book to Hollywood Studios, hoping to get it set up before the book was even written.

And so Stacey said there was a lawsuit. There are these other guys claiming that they were the ones who invented Facebook. And just from what she was describing to me, I was in. I wanted to do this. And I think that- And you didn't know Fincher was in yet? Fincher wasn't in yet. Nobody was in yet but me.

I was now in. And in fact, I wasn't going to wait until Ben had written the book. I was going to start writing now. So Ben and I were essentially writing at the same time. Then, and by the way, it didn't end up at Universal. It ended up at Sony, where Amy Pascal at the time was the chairwoman. And Amy and the producer, Scott Rudin, and this would be the first of now many times that I've worked with Scott. They thought that I should direct the movie, which is something I'd never done before.

I'd never directed anything. And that scared the hell out of me. And we said, you know what? Before we pull the trigger on this, let's just let David Fincher pass, okay? Let's send it to David. He'll pass. He passes on everything.

And then I'll swallow hard and do this. So it was messengered over to David. And about two and a half hours later, I got an email saying, Aaron, it's David Fincher. I'm going to direct the social network. Can I come over? And it was the beginning of one of the best creative relationships I've ever had. And he's a genius. Yes, he is. I hate using the word genius, but it actually seems like he's a genius. He is. And he's a guy you would like very much. And if you can get him to do this podcast, do it.

You think he would do it? I do. I know that he's a big fan of yours. Oh, wow. That would be great. He, I have a lot of questions about the game. I still don't know what the fuck happened in that movie.

He's a, he'll try to tell you. He's a great sports fan, knows tell you. I don't know. He, he's a great sports fan, knows a lot about sports. Really? He directs. David Fincher? Yeah. Huge sports fan.

And in fact, he, in his spare time, directs a lot of the Nike and Gatorade commercials. Oh, I always heard rumors about that. They keep it kind of low. Yeah. And he would tell me stories of like, he's doing a Gatorade commercial with Adrian Peterson, you know, and it's Adrian Peterson running the length of the field and just avoiding defenders like crazy. He's flipping them over and everything. And of course, neither the NFL or the Minnesota Vikings

are going to allow anyone to touch Adrian Peterson. Yeah. So David's using Adrian Peterson for the closeups and no one can touch Adrian. And then for wider shots, he's got 20 Adrian Peterson's college ball. And he turns to defenders a hundred bucks to anyone who could knock his helmet off.

Oh my God. Yeah. those poor guys that i mean so uh anyway david is a genius um that movie is amazing by the way also one of the most rewatchable movies of all time i appreciate it's one of those like you pop in and you're like oh oh this scene all right i'll do 20 minutes here He's got an incredible eye and he's got an incredible brain. And I love him. Did you, you're going into that movie and you're thinking, obviously if you watch the social network, Zuckerberg's not a great guy in that movie.

You're not watching that going, oh, this is a good guy. He's a complicated guy. I wouldn't say he's a good guy, but then you watch what's happened the last five years. It's like, oh, maybe we should have watched the social network a little bit closely. Yeah. Zuckerberg, right, the social network,

that was the first time I had written an antihero in Mark Zuckerberg. And an antihero isn't a villain. They live somewhere between that. And if you're going to write, and this is what I discovered with that, but if you're going to write an antihero, you can't judge that character.

You have to, as the writer, you have to be able to defend that character and you have to write that character like they're making their case to God why they should be allowed into heaven. Yeah. That makes sense. Yeah. I – we could go 20 minutes on this.

Can we talk about what you're playing? Yeah. Okay. So it's To Kill a Mockingbird. We just opened on Broadway about three weeks ago. I've heard of it. It's a pretty well-known book. We all read it in school. And it's tough to talk about without giving spoilers. I will tell you that Jeff

Daniels is playing Atticus Finch, and it's a tour de force performance. Your guy. Yes. My guy, indeed. It's a phenomenal cast of 24, directed by Bartlett Sher, who is a great director of wonderfully theatrical productions. In his spare time, when he's not directing on Broadway, he directs operas for The Met. But this is sort of a new look at To Kill a Mockingbird. It's not meant to be a museum piece or a piece of nostalgia or an homage to anything. As soon as the curtain goes up because of what you're looking at and because of what you're hearing, you understand that this is going to be a new experience for you. Wow. It's not going to take you back to eighth grade.

We didn't get to talk about the newsroom and we get to talk about the internet and it's, but so you have to come back. I would love to eighth grade. We didn't get to talk about the newsroom and we didn't get to talk about the internet. So you have to come back. I would love to come back. I left something on the bone. Give one tip to the fledgling writers out there. Okay, here it is. Find a copy of the screenplay of a movie that you like. Put the movie on TV or on your computer screen

with a screenplay in your lap and read along with the movie and start to notice what the movie on TV or on your computer screen with a screenplay in your lap and read along with the movie and start to notice what the movie was like when it was on the page. Uh, uh, how, how someone wrote Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, uh, for instance. That was my last question. Where our friend William Goldman died. I know. Uh, give me one, give one Goldman story and then we're done. Sure. Um, well, first of all, let me say, I think he's the best screenwriter who ever lived. I was lucky enough that he took me under his wing

when I was in my 20s. But one William Goldman story when there are so many. Okay. When he was writing Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, he had a secret. And this is also for young screenwriters. It's great to have a secret. And what I mean is something that you know

about these characters that nobody else knows that's going to come as a big surprise. Now here's a Butch and Sundance spoiler coming in three... Now, people saw it. Okay. Bill Goldman knew that Sundance Kid didn't know how to swim. And so he just couldn't wait to get to that cliff.

And that's what you want to be doing when you're a writer. You want to be writing, I just can't wait to get to the edge of that cliff. I went to his memorial service, and I left with a guest to go because there was a Knicks game. And I wanted to go to the edge of that cliff. I went to his memorial service and I left with a guest to go because there was a Knicks game and I wanted to go to the Knicks game because it was Giannis

and I felt like he would have approved. There's no doubt about it. And then the Knicks won in overtime and I was like, this is weird because the Knicks suck. They have no business beating Giannis and I was like,

this is only happening because of Goldman. You ever read a book that Goldman wrote with Mike Lupica? My favorite sports book. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Thanks for doing this.

This was great. Thanks a lot. I really appreciate it. All right. All right. Thanks so much to Aaron Sorkin and Joe House. Thanks to the New England Patriots for making my weekend this weekend

when they beat the Chiefs. Thanks to ZipRecruiter. Don't forget to go to ziprecruiter.com slash BS. Thanks to SimpliSafe. 2019 feels like a good year to ask yourself, is my home as safe as it could be? And if you think, well, maybe this is the year to fix that with SimpliSafe.

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Million dollar picks for this week. Rams plus three and a half million bucks on that. Pats plus saved with two I's. Million dollar picks for this week. Rams plus three and a half. Million bucks on that. Pats plus three. Million bucks on that as well. Pats-Rams. The rematch. 17 years later.

2001, 2019. I guess that's 18 years. I can't do, football is so confusing with the math. So the Rams Super Bowl is February 2002. Pats. So this would be 17 years later. Feels like 25.

So glad to have Tom Brady and Bill Belichick in my life. Kyle, let's do this. Let's do it. Come on. Come on. Go Pats. Go Pats. Go Pats. I don't have.