Aaron Sorkin Worried He’d Never Write Again After Having a Stroke - Vanity Fair

The Oscar winner opens up about an episode so serious it prompted one doctor to tell him, “You’re supposed to be dead.”

March 22, 2023

As Aaron Sorkin prepares for the April 13 opening of Broadway’s Camelot, the Oscar-winning screenwriter turned musical-book writer is sharing the health scare that almost stopped it from happening.

Last November, two months before rehearsals on his latest show were scheduled to begin, Sorkin learned that he had suffered a stroke, he revealed in an interview with The New York Times published Wednesday. A doctor told the 61-year-old, who sought medical advice after “crashing into walls and corners” of his home, that his blood pressure was so high, “You’re supposed to be dead.”

In the days after discovering his stroke, Sorkin said, he began slurring his words and found it nearly impossible to type or even sign his own name. “There was a minute when I was concerned that I was never going to be able to write again,” he told the Times, “and I was concerned in the short-term that I wasn’t going to be able to continue writing Camelot.”

The screenwriter, who smoked heavily since high school but has since gone cold turkey, said this event “was a loud wake-up call,” adding, “I thought I was one of those people who could eat whatever he wanted, smoke as much as he wanted, and it’s not going to affect me. Boy, was I wrong.” Initially resistant about going public with his stroke, Sorkin said he was coming forward with hopes of warning others about their health. “If it’ll get one person to stop smoking,” he told the Times, “then it’ll be helpful.”

Although Sorkin ingests “a lot of medicine” now—“You can hear the pills rattling around in me,” he joked to the Times—he has no plans to stop writing. In fact, he’s reportedly “dreaming up a Jan. 6 movie” that Sorkin would both write and direct, following his dual efforts on Being the Ricardos, The Trial of the Chicago 7, and Molly’s Game. “Let me make this very, very clear,” Sorkin said. “I’m fine. I wouldn’t want anyone to think I can’t work. I’m fine.”