Bartlet4America News Archive

Fans Get Look Inside ‘West Wing’

Zap2it.com

LOS ANGELES — While President Bush was addressing Congress for the first time Tuesday night, the nation's other president was holding court in North Hollywood with some of his key staff.

Martin Sheen, along with Rob Lowe, Richard Schiff, Janel Moloney and Dule Hill, was taking part in a special look at "The West Wing" put on by the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. Series creator and executive producer Aaron Sorkin was also on hand, along with executive producer Thomas Schlamme.

Those in attendance got an insight into how Sorkin came up with the idea for the series and how he works on weekly storylines. Sorkin explained the show came out of a lunch with "ER" producer John Wells.

"I just thought we'd eat," Sorkin said of the lunch, which also involved several agents. Asked about possible TV series he'd like to do, Sorkin used his screenplay for "American President" as inspiration.

"There was a deal instantly, before coffee came," Sorkin laughed.

As for the ideas behind each week's storylines, Sorkin said he has no "political sophistication" at all and only strives for drama. Viewer feedback did help him come up with the cliffhanger finale for the first season, when the President and his staff were fired upon by white supremicists. Hate mail from viewers in repsonse to the interracial relationship between the President's youngest daughter and the President's aide sparked the idea.

"The startling thing is that I couldn't believe they'd been watching the series to that point," Sorkin said, describing the letters as "horrible."

"Those letters were really something else."

Not only was "An American President" an inspiration for the show -- Sorkin says the initial script was so long for the film, he was able to use "little shards of leftover stories" for "West Wing." The film also brought Martin Sheen and Sorkin together, and the experience led Sheen to want to work with the writer again. The man who plays President Josiah Bartlet said he brought very little to the character, explaining it is "entirely the creation" of Sorkin.

However, no one was talking about how this season may end. Sorkin joked that he had just come up an idea for the finale, but was told by Schlamme to "Just say no" if asked about future storylines.