Because Molly's Game was the first movie that writer Aaron Sorkin directed, he felt that he needed advice on how to best make the film. He first turned to acclaimed director David Fincher, whom he met and became good friends with on the set of The Social Network, which Sorkin wrote and won an Academy Award for. Sorkin had to call Fincher, but he had a fellow director with him on set often in the form of Kevin Costner, who won the Academy Award for Best Director for Dances with Wolves.
With his Academy Award-nominated script in hand, Sorkin began to shoot the film. Although he didn't have a deep connection to the story, he liked it and wanted for the film to be as real as possible. To that end, he hired professional poker players to be extras in the film. He wanted the film to feel authentic -- down to how the players handled the cards.
The film's shoot, however, was not without challenges. Idris Elba and Jessica Chastain, the film's two stars, could only be one set for ten days. Sorkin had to find a way to effectively make his film without having his two stars for very long. To that end, they shot 45 pages of the script in only 6 days (typically, productions like Molly's Game shoot 5 pages per day). It's not known if Sorkin had to compromise his artistic vision because of this, but the film still turned out very well.
