Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip was written by Aaron Sorkin. As you watch these scenes, keep in mind that a TV script is the record of a conversation between characters that exist only in the mind of the writer. The job of the director is to make these characters come to life onscreen.
The West Wing, another brilliant work by Aaron Sorkin. Josh says very little in this scene, but great writing + great directing makes his personality dazzlingly clear.
Notice how Sorkin inserts comments that might have caused the conversation to have taken a different direction, but how each distraction falls aside due to the momentum of the President’s train of thought and CJ’s relentless pursuit of her topic. This is how real conversations sound.
https://youtu.be/bIpKfw17-yY
Remember what I said about a script being a record of the conversations between imaginary characters? Watch how the mask of this character falls away after one-too-many slams to the mask. This is part of the opening scene in episode one of The Newsroom, another Aaron Sorkin masterpiece. Interestingly, Sorkin explained some years later that his inspiration for this series came from Don Quixote, a story about a man struggling valiantly against impossible odds.
