Bartlet4America News Archive

Sheen campaigns for another term as 'West Wing' president

Now in reruns, "The West Wing" inaugurates its fourth season with a two-hour episode at 9 p.m. on Sept. 25.
By Bridget Byrne
Associated Press

Martin Sheen, who plays chief executive Josiah "Jed" Bartlet in the highly-rated NBC series, received his third Emmy nomination for the role in July. It was one of 21 Emmy nods the drama is up for this year; the awards are to be presented Sept. 22. "The West Wing" has won 17 Emmys since its 1999 debut, including two for best dramatic series.

Hard on the campaign trail when the new season starts, President Bartlet presumably wins another term in office because Sheen has signed a new three-year contract that reportedly awards him around $300,000 per episode.
"I signed an agreement to keep it secret and as far as I'm concerned it's still a secret," Sheen says, declining to confirm the trade-paper reports.

On the first season of "The West Wing," Bartlet was to appear only about once a month. "The only thing the contract said I could not do was play another president elsewhere. I was fine with that," says Sheen, who in 1983 starred in the title role of the TV miniseries "Kennedy."

But it quickly became apparent to "West Wing" producers that "the old man," as Sheen calls Bartlet, should be a full-time, anchoring presence on the ensemble show created and written by Aaron Sorkin.

For Sheen, the high-profile role has been a life change "career-wise, personally, economically. When you get as lucky as I've been on this, the money is for all the years that you prepared."

The 62-year-old actor was smitten by the movies as a child.

"I just knew instinctively I could do that thing those guys were doing up there," he says. "And if I didn't do that, some measure of me would die."

His varied career has included dozens of film and TV appearances over 35 years, as well as occasional stage work. He won an Emmy for a guest shot on the CBS sitcom "Murphy Brown" in 1994, and he next plays a lawyer in Steven Spielberg's upcoming feature "Catch Me If You Can."

Sheen and wife Janet have four children, all actors: Charlie Sheen, Emilio Estevez, Renee Estevez and Ramon Estevez.

Born in Dayton, Ohio, to politically conscious, working-class parents of Irish and Spanish heritage, Sheen says he developed a concern about social justice early on. One of 10 children, he supplemented his father's factory-worker income by caddying at a country club.

"I was formed in large measure during those years. They were difficult, but I wouldn't trade them for anything in the world because I was working for the over-privileged, the insensitive, and I learned that there were two different societies," he says.

Still politically active, Sheen pleaded guilty last year to trespassing on government property during a protest against missile defense at California's Vandenberg Air Force Base. He was fined and placed on three years' probation.

The actor says he's uncomfortable when President Bartlet uses the military "because I think violence is a reflection of despair." But he never tries to change a "West Wing" script.

"Aaron (Sorkin) knows exactly what he wants to hear and if you deviate from it even a note, it's something else," Sheen said. "So I trust his instinct and his talent far more than I trust my own."

Overall, the actor - who describes himself as "a radical, a liberal Democrat, a practicing Catholic" - feels compatible with this fantasy president, who he believes incorporates the "very best of John Kennedy, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton."

"West Wing" director Thomas Schlamme says he sometimes has to push the loquacious Sheen - who seems to have endless time for others - to make Bartlet a little more "short and quick with people." But the director says nothing can erase the "human empathy" that comes through in the actor's eyes.

In the fictional Oval Office, Bartlet has a plaque on his desk similar to one President Kennedy was said to have had.

"I refer to it a lot," Sheen says, referring to himself, not his character. "It's a 13-word prayer. It's very powerful. 'Oh Lord, your sea is so great and my boat is so small.' That kind of says it all. Life is difficult. It's supposed to be."