AARON SORKIN

AARON SORKIN writes exclusively for EMPIRE on how his courtroom drama THE TRIAL OF THE CHICAGO 7 became suddenly timely

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I WAS ASKED to come over to Steven Spielberg’s house on a Saturday morning. He asked me if I’d like to write a movie about the Chicago 7 and I said, “Absolutely! You bet! Count me in!” After I left his house I called my father to ask him who the Chicago 7 were. I had a lot of work to do and not much time to do it because the last thing Steven said to me before I left his house was, “It’d be great if we could release the film before the election.” He was talking about the election of 2008.

I read a dozen books about the riot in 1968 outside the Democratic convention in Chicago and the crazy conspiracy trial that followed.

There was the trial transcript — 21,000 pages — and, most critically, there was time spent with [political activist and one of the Chicago 7] Tom Hayden, who passed away four years ago.

Once I’d filled up on research, it was time to start writing, which means it was time to start procrastinating. The procrastination period is a crucial part of the process. You’re climbing the walls, letting days, weeks and even months pass by without writing anything. It’s because you don’t have it yet. You have the research — you could write a report for class if you wanted to — but you don’t have a movie in your head, you have a detailed Wikipedia page.

So I was failing Steven Spielberg but I was able to resist faking my own death. The film organised itself into three stories that I’d tell simultaneously. The courtroom drama; the evolution of the riot (how what was supposed to be a peaceful protest turned into a violent clash with the police and the National Guard); and the more personal friction between Hayden and [fellow Chicago 7 protestor] Abbie Hoffman.

I delivered the first draft 18 months after my father told me who the Chicago 7 were. Twelve years and 22 drafts after that, we made the movie. When I started writing, it was just a good story to tell. Then Donald Trump ran for President. He began getting nostalgic about protestors at his rallies and the old days when “they’d drag that guy

outta here on a stretcher” and “beat the crap outta him”. Protest was demonised as un-american. As we were finishing post-production, George Floyd was killed. And Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor. Protests broke out in cities across America. And then came clubs and the tear gas.

I’ve been asked if I changed the script at all to mirror events. I didn’t. Events changed to mirror the script.

Clockwise from top left: Director Aaron Sorkin and Sacha Baron Cohen (as activist Abbie Hoffman) on set; Sorkin and cast in the courtroom; The police deploy tear gas.