both aaron sorkin and producer scott rudin wanted jeff daniels. ou were writing this? >> sorkin: there was never a conversation about any other actor. in fact, in that first phone call, scott said, "we'll do it with jeff, right?" >> kroft: why were you thinking of him? >> sorkin: well, he's one of the best actors that i know. >> daniels: this trial wouldn't happen on a sidewalk, or a lunch counter, or a park bench. it would happen in an american court of law, and you should have faith in that institution. >> sorkin: and i knew that he wasn't going to care about expectations, whether it's from people who've read the book, thinking, "that's not the atticus i saw in my head," or people who've seen the movie, who would say, "that's not gregory peck." he-- he was already right away in a place that it took me about a year to get to, which is-- "listen, you're-- you're going to have to get harper lee out of your head. you're going to have to get the book out of your head. you're going to have to get all the people who are going to say, 'you've ruined my c

aaron sorkin wrote one of them for "newsroom." but thi is it. it's a joy. >> aaron sorkin said when he was reimagining this, he said there way one name that came to his mind to play this role. and it was you. hesaid, we wrote it for jeff. >> that doesn't happen vy often. >> it doesn't, does it? >> i have a great relationship with aaron. and "newsroom" was three yes. when a writer gets to tailor a role for an actor like a suit, when this came along, he got to do it again. and he knows me better than ime know and it's really a joy to see what he did with it. and to take harper lee and wrap it around me and what he wano to with it, it's been a we have a good thing. >> he's so famous f his lickety-split dialogue. do you do mouth limbering exercises? >> i have a 15-minute -- >> can you give us a little bit? >> everyone in america will back up about 15 feet fm the tv. i can really -- i do the whole thing. >> you have to. >> youto have >> it's aaron sorkin. >> otherwise, you're going to trip and stumble and you'rego g to -- boom -- by the end of the se

aaron sorkin once wrote this great line in a play that music is what science does on a saturday night. [laughter] and often times jaron starts his talks by playing one of his unusual instruments. and as you see, he brought one, so let's start that way. >> okay. so i don't have a mic stand, so i'm -- [inaudible] sure. do you want to just -- here. ah. the instrument. [inaudible conversations] >> yes, hold it there. >> okay. [laughter] >> the human mic stand. [laughter] i might have to patent you. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ [applause] >> what is that? >> you don't know what that is? [laughter] it's called a kahen. usually it's from laos in southeast asia. honestly, it's a good crowd pleaser that i can take on carry-on, so it's effective as a little thing to take to events. but it's also arguably the oldest digital number. so this is 16 similar objects that are either on or off in fixed positions, and it goes back at least 10,000, probably more than 13,000 years. so it's a 16-bit number. this is where it all started. and, actually, there's a whole lineage that leads to the modern computer directly from this