Oscar-winning screenwriter Aaron Sorkin has finally learned the truth. The best storytellers on the planet are Irish. Sorkin, arguably the most celebrated movie and TV writer of his generation, made his claim in an interview with the Irish Times on December 22. 

Sorkin told the Times' Tara Brady, "No question. I wish I was Irish; let me tell you why. The best storytellers on the planet are Irish. And because a few years ago the Abbey Theatre commissioned me to write a play. That play was The Farnsworth Convention, which premiered not at the Abbey, but on Broadway, because the mandate changed and they wanted Irish writers writing about the Irish experience. And I’m a Jewish guy writing about an American inventor. I wasn’t qualified anymore." Sorkin added, "But I will earn my way back to the Abbey."

Sorkin was raised in the New York City suburb of Scarsdale by parents of Russian-Jewish descent. He was speaking to the Times to promote his new movie, Molly's Game, about a high stakes poker female poker player named Molly Bloom. The film marks Sorkin's directorial debut. Perhaps it's just a coincidence that the film's main character shares a name with Leopold Bloom's adulterous wife in James Joyce's Ulysses. Although Sorkin's Molly Bloom is a real person.

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One episode of Sorkin's seminal TV hit The West Wing, dealt with an Irish issue. The episode, "Dead Irish Writers," saw Sorkin's fictional president deal with the issue of meeting an accused Irish terrorist who has adopted parliamentary politics. 

One of the stars of the movie is Roscommon's favorite son, with respect to these fine people, Chris O'Dowd. According to Mashable, O'Dowd plays "a key role as the man who introduces [Bloom] to the Russian mob and brings them to the table, so to speak. In an interview, O'Dowd described his character as being "deeply in love" with the leading character. Critic Richard Roeper writing in the Chicago Sun-Times that, "Chris O'Dowd's Douglas Downey is a sad charmer, but he seems like an unnecessary character until he doesn't. Roeper goes on to give the movie a positive review, describing Chastain's performance as Oscar-nomination worthy. 

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