Early in his career, Oscar winning writer Aaron Sorkin was one of three credited writers on the film Malice , for which he had to write his first sex scene. In a new interview, Sorkin talks about his struggles to do so. While talking to Vulture about his new film Steve Jobs , Sorkin admitted that much like the subject of his new film, he doesn’t like when people mess with his creations. Therefore, his experience seeing what had been added to Malice was life altering for him. Very early on in my career, I wrote a movie I’m not terribly proud of. It’s called Malice , with Alec Baldwin and Nicole Kidman . I was actually the second and the fourth writer on that movie. We had a week or two of rehearsal before shooting, when the director decided there needed to be a sex scene between Alec and Nicole somewhere in the second act. I went back to the hotel and wrote a four-page scene of sexy banter that ended with, “And they fall into bed, as we cut to the next morning, the quad on campus.” Harold [Becker, the director] read the script and went, “No, no no — they have to get naked and have sex.” You have to write that. [Reached for comment, Becker said, “I don’t recollect asking Aaron to amend the love scene between Nicole and Alec as it was integral to the plot of the film.”] “And I said, ‘Boy, Harold, I’ll be honest, I’ve never really done that. I’m as big a fan of sex as anybody, but I’m not quite sure how to do this.’ And I’ll never forget, Harold said, ‘Just look at Nicole. Just write what you’d like to see her do.’” And I said, ‘I’m not going to write that down!’ First of all, I’d just done a movie [ A Few Good Men ] with her husband. I can’t write down what I’d like to see Nicole do and then have Nicole do it and watch her do it for me. In the end, everybody got together in Harold’s trailer, and they just choreographed what the sex scene would be — Nicole unbuttons his belt and unzips his pants, that kind of thing. When this was shooting, I excused myself from the set. And I can’t emphasize this enough — huge fan of sex, in any combination you want. But for some reason it’s difficult for me to write, and Nicole had become a friend of mine, and I just felt wrong on the set, watching her take her clothes off. So I didn’t see it until I saw the first cut of the movie. The zipping and everything happens. And Alec says, “I’m going to take you upstairs and fuck you now.” And I was mortified — not necessarily because it was the wrong line in the scene. I was just mortified that anyone in the audience would think that was something that I think is cool to say. I really felt it reflecting on me, even though this was at a point where even fewer people gave a shit about who I was than now. But even so, I didn’t want strangers thinking that was sexy, or charming — really anything but boorish. And so I get it. For me, that’s a way to identify with Steve — somebody messing with one of his products. Granted, much of Malice doesn’t feel or sound like a Sorkin movie, with the possible exception of Alec Baldwin ‘s “I am God” speech which is vintage Sorkin. Even still, it’s both funny and interesting to hear a widely respected writer talk about how aggravating something as simple as sex scenes can be.
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Aaron Sorkin: "Huge Fan" of Sex Scenes, Hates Writing Them
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