June 03, 2002
Richard Schiff on The View
Barbara Walters: Well, now you know why I love that show. It's about the only thing I hate about this summer is that I have to wait months for a brand-new episode of one of my favorite shows. It's also Star's. Star and I come in and say, "What do you think? What did he say?" The show is called The West Wing. So today I'm going to see if I can get any secrets of the next season out of Richard Schiff. He plays the loyal, trustworthy, strong, communications director Toby Ziegler. I think he really is. Please welcome Richard Schiff. Richard, you've been with us before.
Richard Schiff: Every trip to New York, it seems like I come and say hello. It's one of my regular stops.
BW: We've been talking about starving, you know. Look at all the weight you've lost since you've been on with us. How much have you lost?
RS: About twenty pounds.
Joy Behar: Why? How?
Star Jones: She's excited now.
RS: I eat as many pork chops as I can.
SJ: And nothing else.
RS: No, I just don't eat.
BW: You're going to live forever.
RS: I hope not, actually. I hope I come back.
BW: Do they mind on the show? Do they mind that you've lost all this weight and you look different?
RS: Well, it provided a little competition for Mark Harmon, and I think he got a little upset because--
BW: I want to talk about that.
RS: All of a sudden I became a babe and Mark Harmon--
Lisa Ling: You've always been a babe.
RS: Exactly. Who said that?
LL: I did.
RS: Thank you. I appreciate that.
LL: You're welcome.
RS: Move closer.
BW: So listen. So here we go. It's the last show of the season. Mark Harmon plays a Secret Service agent. He finally has a romance with CJ. In case you don't watch, she's the press secretary. You knock him off; you kill him.
RS: Yes, I did.
SJ: That was a waste of time. It was bad.
BW: Do you know in advance that these things are going to happen, that there's going to be--
RS: Well, we get--You know, Aaron comes down. Aaron Sorkin, who's the writer of the set, will come down every now and then out of his writing, you know, cell and start spitting out possible ideas for stories, you know. "I'm thinking of having you fall in love with a poet." Or "I'm thinking of CJ having a love interest--"
JB: "And I'll kill him."
RS: You kind of hear--you know, Mark Harmon is going to be busy, so it's a clue that he's not going to be there forever. I didn't know they'd knock him off. But I would have if they'd--
BW: You would have done it.
RS: Well, cause Toby is going to end up with CJ, we all know that's going to happen.
BW: Is Toby going to end up with CJ?
RS: He'd better. Otherwise, I'm--
BW: Is that what's going to happen next year?
SJ: Well, they fight. They do have this little tension going on.
RS: We have a thing. There's a reason why Aaron kept Toby out of the story line cause he would have had a jealous rage or two, and I don't know if that was appropriate.
BW: Toby's going to end up with CJ.
SJ: You're so full of it.
BW: You know, the Emmy nominations are coming up. And two years ago, you won an Emmy and you did not thank your wife, so--
RS: Thank you for bringing that up.
BW: I just thought--was it an oversight?
RS: You know what happens when you're--Somebody told me just a minute or two just before my category that a billion people were watching. And that made me just a little bit nervous. So I got up, and you become a--I mean, some of us become children again when we get all this attention, and you don't know what you're going to say. And my brain just kind of rolled out of control. And the person most important to me in my life, of course, I forgot to thank.
Meredith Viera: Did she notice?
RS: No, she was great about it. No, she did not. She did not.
BW: If you win this year, you better remember.
RS: I'm going to say it first, second, last, and that's all I'm going to say.
SJ: There you go.
LL: You mentioned the most important person in your life, Sheila, but she, I understand, has this very unusual job called "Stripping For the Everyday Woman." Do you care to elaborate on that?
JB: Yeah, what's that about?
RS: She actually doesn't strip--she doesn't strip for the everyday woman; she stripped for me. She actually--she produced a movie called Dancing at the Blue Iguana that she starred in as well. That was about strippers. She's been fascinated with it for a long time. And when we moved into our new house, I put--you know, I have a gym/office in the back, and she put a pole in there because during the movie she had gotten in great shape and she wanted to continue that. Then some friends asked her for some lessons, and it turned into--it just gradually turned into this amazing phenomenon where now she has--she teaches eight classes a week and has a waiting list of seventy women.
SJ: In your house? You lucky dog, you.
RS: In my house. You ask me why I lose weight? Because I'm always in my office working out.
BW: Ask her if she'll come on and show us.
RS: She would do that in a second.
BW: Okay, that would be fun.
RS: But she's also got--
BW: Lisa would love to do it.
LL: No, Barbara, you would like to demonstrate it.
RS: Actually, you all should actually do it. What's happening is that women from all shapes and sizes and ages are--something very empowering is happening to them and the men in their lives as well, you know.
JB: Empowering from stripping?
RS: Yeah.
SJ: What?
JB: Why? How?
RS: Oh, you know what I'm talking about.
JB: No, she doesn't.
RS: There's a--there's a--
LL: I'd like to see the men empower themselves, put a pole in their bedroom and--
RS: Well, it wouldn't be a pole, but I wouldn't mind that either. What it is is that it's this very sexually empowering kind of movement, and it's all about women kind of finding their own way of moving again, you know. And if you look around society, which my wife points out to me all the time, on every magazine article, every commercial, it's all stripper moves, it's all stripper poses. It's pervasive in this society, you know.
JB: No wonder we can't be anchors.
BW: Exactly.
RS: You can be. You just should be curvaceous about it.
BW: Oh, sure, that'll work. Why didn't I try that? Yeah.
RS (to MV): I remember when you first became a local anchor here at CBS.
MV: That's right.
RS: I mean, I remember that, and I paid attention. I thought it was cool that this beautiful woman was suddenly anchoring the news and it was not that common back then.
MV: Would you have loved me better if I'd been stripping?
RS: Yes.
JB: What if she wasn't beautiful? Would you have watched it anyway?
RS: Yes.
JB: So there's the point.
BW: We're getting in a little trouble here. Join the hot topics.
MV: But she should come and talk about it cause it is interesting. It's a hot topic.
RS: Actually, it makes more sense when it's coming out of her mouth cause when she starts talking about how it's changed women's lives it's more believable than when I say it. Cause for me it's just about the stripping.
BW: We'll have her on with us.
SJ: That's actually a very good idea.
RS: Absolutely. She's got a book and a video coming out about the whole thing.
MV: Well, you met her when you were a director, right? When she came to audition for you?
RS: She did. Yeah, she was really young and there was a play--
MV: What was your impression of her?
RS: I thought--you know, we had a mutual friend actually, that showed pictures--who was a photographer and was obsessed with her. Her name is Sheila Kelly. She's great. Some of you know her from LA Law and from Singles and from other movies and stuff. But she's stunningly beautiful, and this photographer was obsessed with her and kept showing me pictures, "you have to meet her" and "she's really talented and audition with her," and so--So I auditioned her in a play--
JB: Did you hit on her?
RS: She insists that I hit on her, yeah. She says that; I refute that. I may have tried, but I still refute that I did. But she's stunningly beautiful, and I happened not to cast her. She was a little young at that time. Angela Bassett ended up doing the play, actually.
JB: How much older than her were you?
RS: I think forty or fifty years.
BW: But since you've lost weight, you're looking good. No, you always look good. Listen, I have two questions to ask you. One, does President Bartlet win again?
RS: We don't know.
BW: You don't know.
RS: We have to go through a whole election.
BW: We have to go through a whole season. But you're going to end up having a hot romance with CJ?
RS: Aaron's going to kill me now.
BW: Well, see what you learn on this show? Thank you, Richard Schiff.
RS: It's my pleasure.
BW: Come on with us any time. And do tell your wife to come on.
RS: She would love to do it.
BW: Well, we learned a lot today, and we'll be learning more when Sheila comes on. Right?
RS: Absolutely.
BW: Okay, thank you, Richard Schiff, and we'll be right back.
Posted by MorganG at June 3, 2002 01:19 PM