STAR: ARLEEN SORKIN

DAYTIME ROLE: ex-Calliope Jones Bradford, DAYS OF OUR LIVES

FORMER ROLE: Shoe model

NEW JOB: Co-Executive Producer/Creator of FIRED UP, a sitcom on NBC. (It will appear on Mondays this fall.)

SILVER SCREEN VENTURE: Wrote the new Jennifer Aniston film, "Picture Perfect," with writing partner Paul Slansky. MOONLIGHTING creator Glenn Gordon Caron helped with the script and directed the film.

Since leaving the crazy carousel of daytime TV, ARLEEN SORKIN (ex-Calliope) has been busy behind the camera. Focusing her energies on writing scripts for TV, Sorkin has reached a successful rung on the television ladder: she's helped create, and co-executive produces the new NBC sitcom, FIRED UP, starring Sharon Lawrence, late of NYPD BLUE. But it was her days on DAYS that inadvertently helped make another of Sorkin's dreams come true -- a screenplay she co-wrote entitled "Picture Perfect," is now a major motion picture starring FRIENDS' star Jennifer Aniston (Rachel). Sorkin thanks Jennifer's dad, John Aniston (ex-Victor, DAYS), with getting her script to the star, who instantly fell in love with it.

Sorkin spoke with SOAP OPERA DIGEST ONLINE about her Picture Perfect life, the good, old DAYS and getting FIRED UP.

JUST WING IT!

DIGEST ONLINE: How did John Aniston play a part in helping you get your script to the big screen?

ARLEEN SORKIN: Somewhere in the middle of writing it, I started having [Jennifer Aniston] in my head, because it helps when you're writing something to have somebody's voice. When [Paul Slansky and I] were done writing the script, we went to send it out in order to to sell it. A friend of mine who is an agent, not my agent, was visiting me, and she said, 'Now that the script is finished, you have to get it to who you think would be the perfect actress for it.' So I thought, wait a minute, I know Jennifer Aniston's father. I went back to the house and I called him. I felt a little uncomfortable. I mean, taking advantage of the relationship, but he was so nice. I said, 'John, my partner and I wrote this script. Would you read it?' He was like, 'Sure, send it over.' It was completely casual. No big deal. He then sent it over to Jennifer. From the time we finished it and until now that it's actually up on the screen -- it's a miracle! It's not how Hollywood works. It went really fast, and it really had to do with John.

DIGEST ONLINE: How did you come up with the film's plot?

SORKIN: You'll see a name under the story credits -- May Quigley. She's a friend of mine. She even did a stint on DAYS OF OUR LIVES. She came on when Calliope had a boyfriend named Ethan, who had a country and western bent to him. May is married with a child now, but when she was single, she came over to my house one day and said, 'I'm so sick of people coming up to to me and asking me if I'm dating someone. Sometimes I just want to get a picture and tell people he's my boyfriend, so they'll get off my back.' She thought it would be a great idea for a movie to have a woman who gets a picture and tells everyone that he's her boyfriend. The hitch is the guy in the picture gets murdered, and she becomes a suspect in the murder. As a writer, I don't consider myself someone who writes murder mysteries. It's really not what I do. So I said to her, well, my partner and I will write it up the way we see it. Since she was the inspiration, we shared story [credit] with her.

DIGEST ONLINE: How come Jennifer Aniston's character wants to appear as a bad girl to Kevin Bacon's character?

SORKIN: I've always known men who only pursue women who are in relationships with other men. Whatever commitment problems they have, they can only be attracted to women who are unavailable. They spend all their time trying to win them away, and once they do, they're suddenly not all that interested. That was a male character I've never seen in a movie that I've always wanted to write. I've known them. I thought Kevin Bacon played him brilliantly. I understand from John Aniston that Kevin started on a soap.

DIGEST ONLINE: Yes. He was on GUIDING LIGHT.

SORKIN: I had no idea. Some wonderfully talented people come out of soaps.

DIGEST ONLINE: The screening of PICTURE PERFECT was the other night in New York. That must have been a big thrill in your life.

SORKIN: Yeah. It was really fun. John went, too, and we hung out together.

DIGEST ONLINE: When you were working on DAYS, did you ever write for the show?

SORKIN: I never sat down and wrote a script for the show. I'm very close with Shelly Curtis and Beth Milstein, who were [DAYS] producers so I would go and pitch them storylines and they would end up in the show. They weren't always storylines for me. My favorite thing to do was to come up with storylines for Macdonald Carey [who played Tom Horton] and Frances Reid [Alice Horton]. I just loved those characters. The writers wrote my part, but I would improvise a bit. I was encouraged to improvise.

DIGEST ONLINE: What story points did you come up with?

SORKIN: One of them was when Frances Reid found out she wasn't really married to Macdonald Carey. I collaborated on the fantasy sequence where everyone dressed up.....I was a court jester. What's amazing about that is there's a writer, Paul Deanie, who was home sick from work that day, turns on DAYS and gets the idea from me playing a court jester to write a character into BATMAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES. That's how Harley Quinn was born. She is the joker's girlfriend, and I've been doing the voice of that character now for years. That character is going to be the star villainess in the next [BATMAN] feature.

DIGEST ONLINE: Was being a writer and actor something you've wanted to do since you were a kid?

SORKIN: Well, I really can't answer that question. I have a father, who is a dentist, who loves show business. From the time, we were all little, he encouraged us all to be in show business. I didn't pursue it. After he lost control of me at 13, I didn't do anything to do with show business. In junior high school and high school, I was never in a school play. I was too busy being 13 going on 30. In high school, I decided I wanted to be a dance teacher, which was quite unbelievable. I went to Emerson College [in Boston], which had a dance education department. I lasted in that department about a week. None of the girls shaved their underarms, and they were all really modern dancers. I was like, 'Get me out of here!' Then I went into theater education, and things just happened. I always credit a friend of mine, Scott Whitman, he's now a director and quite successful, but when we were in a college he asked me what I wanted to be. I told him that I wanted to teach theater in high school. And he said, 'With those legs! Are you kidding?!' So I was thinking, 'Hmm. Maybe I do have good legs?' So I didn't become a teacher, but pursued show biz. It just happened. I can't say I had my eyes on the prize. Once I decided to do it, well, that was it.

DIGEST ONLINE: Were you the type of kid who played dress up and put on shows?

SORKIN: My father exposed us to the arts. Every week, I went to the theater. He loved it. I did professional work. I worked at the Arena Stage when I was in elementary school. I danced with the New York City Ballet. I was always just good, never great. I was a good dancer, not a great dancer. I was a good actress, not a great actress. I could always get by and get the parts when I was little. But I knew I wasn't that great, so as I got older, I lost confidence. I felt I wasn't good enough, so I decided I wasn't going to try. Then I realized you don't have to be that good, you can just wing it! And that's what I've been doing -- winging my way through show business. (laughs)

DIGEST ONLINE: You went to Emerson College straight to New York. You must not have had much money?

SORKIN: No, I didn't have much money. My parents were certainly in a position to support me. I was one of those kids who always liked to work. I mean I had a job when I was 13. I used to sell lemonade and I'd have one of those [tip pails for Muscular Dystrophy], and I didn't like to give the money back. (laughs) I loved to work. I can vividly remember mixing my mother's bottles of perfumes into a separate empty bottle and then trying to sell it to her friends as if it was my invention of perfume! (laughs) When I went to New York, I got a job right away. I did a lot of waitressing. I became a shoe model. I started a shoe modeling agency.

DIGEST ONLINE: Is there a lot of money in shoe modeling?

SORKIN: A lot! A lot of money for me, anyway. Thank God I had a size six foot.

DIGEST ONLINE: And you had nice legs, so you were all set!

SORKIN: (laughing) Oh yes, I had nice legs as I already told you. Then I got involved in the comedy troupe, Highheeled Women. Now one of my ex-partners is a huge daytime star --- Regis and Kathie Lee's Mrs. Greenthumbs (Cassandra Dand).

DIGEST ONLINE: What were some of your early professional jobs in show business?

SORKIN: I've been an extra in so many movies. When I was shoe modeling, they would give me the samples. But most of the ones they would give away were the dogs, these hideous shoes. One pair were these gold lame boots. Because I had these incredibly cheesy gold, lame boots, anytime [there was a call for] a hooker in any movie, I got called. There are so many movies that you can see me as an extra walking through, chewing gum, leaning into a car with my gold, lame boots on.

DIGEST ONLINE: Did you receive a lot of encouragement when you went on auditions?

SORKIN: I did a lot of commercials, and the commercial casting people seemed to like what I did. They gave me a lot of confidence. I had more confidence going around in New York being silly. When I first got to New York, I went to see an agent at William Morris, which ended up signing all the Highheeled Women [the comedy troupe that I was a part of]. I remember going to see this casting director and she said, 'You will never work in commercials, because you are too animated.' Then I went to see the daytime casting people and they said, 'You'll never work in daytime, because you are too animated.' It's funny because those are the two things I ended up doing. You know, you can't listen to anyone. No one knows anything. For example, we're in construction on a house. It's been a disaster. We bought a house three years ago. Nobody could tell us if the foundation was good or bad. Nobody could tell us anything. People have opinions and they'll offer you them, but there's no one person who really knows the answer. This has played into every part of my life. For all the people who told me I was never going to do the things I ended up doing... well.

DIGEST ONLINE: DAYS OF OUR LIVES put to rest any casting directors claim you were too animated, as it were, for daytime.

SORKIN: [Actor/Director] Griffin Dunne was a friend of mine in New York. He sent me out to California and told me to look up a friend of his, Charlie Wessler who went onto produce "Dumb and Dumber," but at the time, he was a struggling producer. He was friends with Shelly Curtis, who is now a producer of GENERAL HOSPITAL. Charlie introduced me to her, so we were hanging out and she went to see Cyndi Lauper do a show. Shelly came home and said to me, 'Hey, that would be a great character on DAYS OF OUR LIVES.' That's how the whole thing happened. Shelly brought me in to see [DAYS then Executive Producer] Al Rabin, and he hired me. It was only supposed to be a couple days work on DAYS. It wasn't like they thought it would last seven years. I was supposed to play just this date of Eugene's [who was played by JOHN DE LANCIE], somebody he met through the Lovelorn club. The very first day, Al Rabin came down to me and said, 'Improvise.' So I improvised and I guess they weren't used to laughing on DAYS, and they all started laughing and that was it. I was in.

DIGEST ONLINE: We were saying around the office that back then it was like "Must See TV" with Calliope and Eugene.

SORKIN: The difference between me and a lot of people was I knew how great [daytime] was. Some wanted to go out and do features. Everyone wanted to do nighttime TV. I said, 'There's nothing better than this.' We had so much fun. The scenes I had with LEANN [HUNLEY who played Anna Brady DiMera] and QUINN REDEKER [Alex Marshall] and John de Lancie were just so much fun. There was such freedom to it. A couple of years after that, I started doing DUET, a sitcom [Sorkin played Geneva]. A sitcom is a great thing, but you don't have the freedom you have in daytime. It's more rigid. You have to respect the writers and the script. On a soap, you have so much license to bring the best part of who you are to a character. The ones who really lasted, who you love like Patch [who was portrayed by STEPHEN NICHOLS, now GH's Stefan], they were true to the word basically, but they put the best of who they were into their character -- some aspect of their personality. The thing that makes them sexy at a party. The thing that makes them funny. The thing that makes them crazy. If you can infuse that into your character, it's something that the audience loves. That's what make a great soap character.

DIGEST ONLINE: So many people who have made memorable characters have said the same thing.

SORKIN: Many fine actors have come and gone from daytime television. Being there all those years, and feeling a certain amount of job security, I mean, I never came in and read the script waiting to see if I was going to be killed off, most people did. You would always know who was going to make it.

DIGEST ONLINE: What was your favorite Calliope moment?

SORKIN: I have so many. I can't even begin.

DIGEST ONLINE: And the costumes! I loved Calliope's wedding Christmas Tree dress?

SORKIN: Again, coming full circle -- I'm reading Interview magazine with a Cyndi Lauper interview: She was home on New Year's Eve watching a soap opera and this girl's dress lit up and that's the kind of dress she wanted for her wedding. That was amazing. She happened to see it that day. She didn't know me or the show. [The DAYS costume people were] so much a part of who the character was. It was so great to come in to work and run in and see what insane thing were put together for me. I loved doing the Newlywed Game.

DIGEST ONLINE: Do you ever touch base with Leann Hunley, John de Lancie and your old DAYS co-stars?

SORKIN: Oh, yes. Leann just called me this morning. I've stayed very close with Leann and John and Shelly. I saw John the other night at the premiere. I have nothing but fond memories. I can't look back and say there was anyone I had problems with or didn't love. It was the greatest group of people. The most colorful group of people. A lot of FIRED UP came from that. I would come in and see someone sobbing that their car was being repossessed, people who lived on the edge. A lot of soap opera stars sign the contract and think they're going to work for 12 years. Then after six weeks, they're reading bad news about themselves. They buy the Mercedes and the big house. A very funny story is because I was very close to Shelly, she would tell me who was going to get killed off and I would beg her not to. I would say, 'Shelly, I don't want to know. Don't tell me!' I mean I would be talking to some of these people [who were getting fired], and she would point [to them]. So they would be in the middle of telling me that they would be buying a house, Shelly would make a gesture behind their back telling me that they were on their way out, and I would be going, 'Can't you get a lease option? You don't have to buy the house out right.' Watching people spend right up to the last nickel, but living like royalty! When I was on DAYS, Al Rabin once called me into his office, and said, 'You're not spending enough money. I hear you go to the flea market. This is not the way we want you. You haven't bought a car yet or a home.' It was really funny. He didn't like my lack of spending.

DIGEST ONLINE: You lived modestly even during your success on DAYS?

SORKIN: Yeah. The whole time I was on DAYS, I was very frugal. I was just never into money. People would ask me what kind of car I drove, and I would say, 'Green.' Cars meant nothing to me. I never lived the high life. (playfully) -- Although I'm making it up for it now! Everybody used to make fun of me. There used to be a show on similar to LIFESTYLES OF THE RICH AND FAMOUS, it was similar to RUNAWAY WITH THE RICH AND FAMOUS, perhaps WEEKENDS WITH THE RICH AND FAMOUS?. The show called up and said, 'What do you do on the weekends?' So I said, 'Well, I go to the flea market.' So the show followed me around the flea market. Then I spoke to Leann, and she said, 'You told them you go to the flea market?! Arleen, I told them I go to Newport Beach and stay at the Ritz Carlton!' What an idiot I was! I should have made something up.

DIGEST ONLINE: You started writing scripts when you were working on DAYS, and your first script that sold was for the CBS sitcom DOWN HOME starring Judith Ivey?

SORKIN: No. The first was a spec script for THE GOLDEN GIRLS. I've really had a lot of luck. People say what they like about mine and Paul's writing is that actors want to act in it. Our first pilot, DIRTY LAUNDRY, got sold three more times. We've had a lot of good luck. Our first spec script, "Picture Perfect," got made! We haven't suffered too much.

DIGEST ONLINE: When you say, "we," you are referring to your writing partner, Paul Slansky and yourself. How does one go about finding a writing partner?

SORKIN: Paul and I met at a party at [actress/author] CARRIE FISHER's house many years ago. I remember it was my first Carrie Fisher party, which are always so celebrity-studded. I remember I went to the bar and Ringo Starr made me a drink, so I went to the phone to call home, Washington D.C., to tell my family, 'You'll never believe who just made me a drink.' I used my credit card. I didn't let Carrie pay. Anyway, I turned around and there's Paul Slansky. We became instant friends. We always thought we should collaborate on something. He was a journalist, and he had this project he was doing, a take-off on USA Today called USSR Today for Playboy or GQ. We worked together on that, and then another year went by. It wasn't a partnership yet. Then I had an idea for a soap opera called DIRTY LAUNDRY. I had gone and sold it to HBO, and then I wanted to work on it with somebody. I had been working on it with Beth Milstein, who I used to work with on DAYS OF OUR LIVES. She wasn't available to work on it some more, so I thought of Paul. We were instantly perfect together -- Picture Perfect!

DIGEST ONLINE: What happened to DIRTY LAUNDRY?

SORKIN: We wrote it for HBO, but they didn't end up [making it]. Then CBS bought it. We made it for CBS with FRAN DRESCHER [THE NANNY] and HILLARY BAILEY SMITH [Nola, ONE LIFE TO LIVE; ex-MARGO, ATWT]. I starred in it as well as wrote it, but CBS didn't pick it up so FOX bought it but didn't end up picking it up. It's like the little pilot that could. My character was a fired soap opera star, so Soap Opera Digest made up all these dummy covers with my picture on them. They were so nice to me. They made like 10 covers with my character on them.

DIGEST ONLINE: What was the premise of DIRTY LAUNDRY?

SORKIN: It was a funny soap opera. It was a combination of THIRTYSOMETHING and MARY HARTMAN, MARY HARTMAN. It was about really dysfunctional people. I still would like to write a soap. A funny soap would be the most fun thing in the world. I pray I get the opportunity to do it one day.

DIGEST ONLINE: You touched on it before -- you got some of your ideas for the premise of FIRED UP from your days working on DAYS. Being the creator of the show, how does one go about creating the show and where do all the ideas for creating the show come from?

SORKIN: Paul and I wanted to write a relationship. I say co-dependency is a good thing. People say it's a bad thing, but I don't. We wanted to write this relationship where two people depend on each other, and it's a good thing. It's true of Paul and I. A lot of people write by themselves. Paul and I write together, because we make up one writer together. Our certain skills compliment one another. He doesn't do what I do. I don't do what he does. We really wanted to write that relationship for a while. The very funny and amazing way this show was born was that I was sitting with the executives at Paramount Studios, and they were saying the reason that they wanted us to write a pilot was that we were edgy writers. They proceeded to define what edgy was --'This is edgy. This is not edgy. Naah, that's not edgy. Edgy is dirty. It's not dirty.' This twenty minute argument about what edgy was. I'm looking at my partner, who has left his body. He's so bored and annoyed at them. And I'm thinking, 'I'm going to call [DAYS Executive Producer] Ken Corday' -- this is what I'm thinking while they're talking about edgy -- and I'm going to ask him if I could have my job back. It was a nice job. I worked a couple of days a week. Hmm, I can write movies with Paul on the side. But then I thought, 'Wait a minute, it's a new producer at DAYS. It's all new writers. I don't know anybody there. What if I get fired?' And I looked up at [the Paramount execs] and I said, ''How about a show called FIRED?' And they said, 'Now, that's edgy!' And that's how the show was born.

DIGEST ONLINE: That's a great story. I didn't know NYPD BLUE's SHARON LAWRENCE was so funny until I turned on your show?

SORKIN: She's like one of those talents who can do everything. She sings, she dances, she can do comedy, drama. The whole cast is wonderful.

DIGEST ONLINE: Have you gone back to work yet for the next season of FIRED UP?

SORKIN: We go back into production in two weeks. We've been pre-production now -- breaking down stories, writing scripts. It's a lot of work, but I love it. Be careful what you wish for.

DIGEST ONLINE: You've been so busy behind the camera with FIRED UP, but have you entertained thoughts of acting on the show or elsewhere?

SORKIN: When I'm [at the FIRED UP set], there's not a drop of me that wants to be on stage. I look at them, and I can't believe I ever did it. It looks just so... the pressure of it. I couldn't bear it, in my mind, when I'm standing on the other side of the camera. I find it so odd that I feel that way. I look back at what I was like as Calliope, and I mean I was a maniac. Becoming a writer, I've become more subdued. It's really kind of funny. I'm actually talking to some of the soaps about maybe doing a stint on a soap again. I feel like that would be very...

DIGEST ONLINE: Cathartic?

SORKIN: Yeah. That type of work where it's looser. I really enjoyed it. I mean, I've done a little bit of everything, and when I look back on all of it, I think that was the most fun. Because it feels more like a play, you're really doing a scene. You're not doing it for laughs. You're not doing it for anything but having it be real. That's the kind of writing I like to do. I really like something making something as real as possible, that's why I think soaps are the best form for me. I would like to write a soap, and maybe act in it like DIRTY LAUNDRY, if we ever get that going.

DIGEST ONLINE: You're married to CHRISTOPHER LLOYD, the producer of FRASIER. How did you two meet?

SORKIN: During my very first staff writing job. Chris was a producer on the show, and every time he picked something, he would looked to see if I laughed and I did. We started dating and been together ever since. Seven years. We have a son, Eli, who is two. He'll be three in October.

DIGEST ONLINE: What is it like being a mom?

SORKIN: Wonderful. He's hysterically funny. I remember being pregnant and saying to Chris, 'What if he doesn't have a sense of humor?! What if he has accordion ears?' But he's very funny. We love him.

DIGEST ONLINE: Are you like your dad in a way exposing Eli to the arts?

SORKIN: Well, I'm exposing him to the arts like my father did. He knows every showtune. He's not even three, and he can sing all of "Guys and Dolls." I play them in the car constantly. He knows every show. He's really in love with that music.

DIGEST ONLINE: What advice would you give to aspiring screenwriters and actors?

SORKIN: Don't give up. When I think of all the people I started out with, you know, very few of them stuck with it. It's the odds. Look at someone like JOHN MAHONEY [who plays Frasier's dad on FRASIER]. He didn't start acting until he was 40. It's never too late. What I would also tell them all is to find a way to make a living while you're trying. If I didn't have shoe modeling, I don't know [what I would have done]. The number one piece of advice I would give to an aspiring writer or an actor is you need money -- you need money for pictures, for paper, for a computer. Find a really good way to make a living as something else, not because that's what you're going to be when you grow up. A friend of mine is an actor and has a very successful tee shirt company, tee shirts that say, 'You're Not In Kansas Anymore.' That kind of thing. But he's an actor, and works constantly When work comes up, he works. Meanwhile, he's got a successful company that makes money. That's the only way to do it. It's really hard to stick with it if you're starving. Look at Harrison Ford, he was a carpenter. You have to have another skill to bring in an income. You can't be sitting by the phone. You have to get out there!

** "Picture Perfect" is playing nationwide... FIRED UP appears Mondays on NBC this fall... And soap fans, Sorkin's mother has a company that sells an array of soap paraphernalia, THE SOAP OPERA COMPANY, call 1-800 637-5334.

Thanks to Dana for sending me this chat.

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