On February 18, the 51st anniversary of the trial’s end, Aaron Sorkin, the writer and
director behind the film The Trial of the Chicago 7, and stars Sacha Baron Cohen
(“Abbie Hoffman”) and Eddie Redmayne (“Tom Hayden”), will join National Press
Club President Lisa Nicole Matthews for an in-depth discussion on the legacy of the
Chicago 7 and the movie’s relevance today following a year of massive protests and
America’s long-overdue reckoning with systemic racism.
"The weird thing when you start out acting is that it's quite a solitary thing. You go
and you make a film or you do a play, you become very close very immediately
with a group of extraordinary people. And you then go off and do another one.
Now...film crews are ofter work in smaller groups together so they might bump into
each other more often. In acting, it doesn't happen so much. Fortunately having been
in it long enough you begin to remeet people and reconnect. For me - Sacha and I,
we've met on
Les Miserables. That was an extraordinary experience. We're getting
to work together here, it was wonderful. Mark Rylance who's in the film had given
me my first ever job in a production of
Twelfth Night in which he played Olivia
and I played Viola twenty years ago, so I genuinely have him to thank for my career.
Down to Jeremy Strong who was an old (pal) ... it was this wonderful mixture of
people that I haven't seen for a long time, new people, Yahya and Kelvin, whom
I haven't work with, Frank who
I had met, so it did have this kind of familial
quality to it, but the most glorious thing was, everyone had totally different
processes, so it felt like all these different ... sort of musical genres colliding..."
Aaron Sorkin: “Anyone who is a fan of Eddie in Les Mis, which would be
everyone, go and also watch The Good Shepherd. It's one of the first films
Eddie did - Matt Damon and Eddie - And you’ll hear Eddie sing
‘Shenandoah’ like you’ve never heard anyone sing it before.
You can tell from watching it.”
Eddie: "Oh, Aaron I love you, but you’ll also see one of the worst performances
I’ve ever done in my life because I was so terrified about getting fired.
