Bartlet4America News Archive

2001 was a lousy year for Aaron Sorkin. "The West Wing" creator pleaded guilty to drug possession charges after he was busted at Burbank Airport last April for carrying cocaine, marijuana and hallucinogenic mushrooms in his carry-on bag. Less than three months later, four cast members threatened to boycott the NBC drama if they didn't get a major salary hike.

And after Sept. 11, Sorkin — whose show had already filmed that season's premiere and the next two episodes — struggled to find an appropriate way for C.J., Sam, Toby, Josh, Leo and, of course, President Bartlet, to acknowledge the tragedy without disrupting his carefully crafted parallel universe. Though Sorkin remains proud of the result, a stand-alone show about terrorism, it was vilified by critics.

With all that baggage, it's no wonder Sorkin was shocked that "The West Wing" snagged its third consecutive Best Drama award at last month's Emmys.

"I'm as surprised as you are," he told the crowd, capping a sweep that included wins for Allison Janney, John Spencer and Stockard Channing.

But is the 41-year-old now crowing about his unexpected triumph, a sign that he's got his groove back after what he calls "the fiasco of last year"?

Well, here's how Sorkin describes that award-winning season: "It was an off-year for 'The West Wing' . . . It was very difficult to do the show (after Sept. 11). It's possible that there was a way to do the show well, but I didn't find it."

Clearly, saying Sorkin's hard on himself is like saying his characters like to talk fast.

He's tried to shed the aftertaste of last year's bad news, moving on with the series' next chapter. "I came back this year, and it felt good writing the show. It felt natural."

The pressure of having a hit show rest primarily on Sorkin's slim shoulders is relentless. Yet at least some of that pressure seems self-inflicted.

"Listen, writing in general is difficult for me," says Sorkin as he lights a Merit cigarette. "I've written the first 72 episodes of 'The West Wing' and the 73rd will be the first one I didn't write."

That decision was clearly a struggle for Sorkin, though he's been accused by several of the show's former writers of claiming sole credit for their work. On this day, he does praise "West Wing" scribes Kevin Falls and Eli Attie, who are penning that "73rd episode" called "Swiss Diplomacy."

Another first is that Sorkin has asked friend and playwright Jon Robin Baitz to be a guest writer for a mid-season episode. Essentially, Sorkin says, Baitz will "take one of our characters, and put them in a play. He's taking C.J. and sending her back to a reunion."

Sorkin pauses to puff on his cigarette, and he taps his fingers impatiently on a table in his 41st-floor suite at the Four Seasons. He bunked at the posh hotel earlier this week while in town for a literary festival, but the weekend getaway wasn't pure pleasure.

While he's in New York, the cast and crew are in California shooting Season 4's fifth episode. And they're waiting for Sorkin to finish the next installation.

"I have eight and a half days to write a script. I have not yet written one in eight and a half days. I write them in 9, 10, 11, 12 days," he admits. "It's not at all uncommon for the cast to begin shooting a script before I finish writing it."

Sorkin's not being arrogant. In fact, he's overly apologetic about what he knows is a professional flaw. But, he says anxiously, "I don't know how else to do it. I know other people get together at the beginning of the year, and they come up with a season-long story arc. I envy that."

Right now, the show is focused on Bartlet's November re-election. "Beyond that, I'm not being coy when I say I don't know what's going to happen."

His workload is evident on the hotel room's floor, where carefully-aligned pages are organized by scene, and each one is precisely marked with titles like "NH Polling Scene" and "Will/Sam."

The infamous "West Wing" banter mirrors Sorkin's own rapid-fire speech pattern, although the Scarsdale High School and Syracuse University graduate is infused with much more nervous energy.

Leaning back so his shaggy, gray-streaked brown hair touches his white shirt

collar, Sorkin asks permission to take a sip of water before answering several questions. He gives smart replies about everything from Rob Lowe's impending departure to his own Broadway obsession. (A childhood favorite is "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" He can — with an almost frightening precision — rattle off the original cast from the 1962 production, which opened when he was 16 months old.)

That kind of knowledge is expected, given the show's highbrow reputation. Sorkin's teleplays are loaded with erudite dialogue and articulate plotlines; his characters spout Latin phrases, attend five-hour Shakespearean productions and quote Graham Greene.

What's unexpected is Sorkin's confessed "guilty pleasure" of watching "E! True Hollywood Stories."

"It's true, I can't take my eyes off it," he chuckles. "They're train wrecks."

Sorkin, an odd mix of reserve and candor, is full of contradictions like that.

He's at ease with topics like censorship in television, arguing that broadcast networks — which are competing with cable fare like "The Sopranos," "Sex & the City" and "The Shield" — need to break out of their "1950s" mentality regarding the use of adult situations and prohibited language. "The only way I've been able to get away with stuff on 'West Wing' is if Marlee Matlin signs it," he laughs.

Yet he's surprisingly prickly when it's innocently mentioned that his writing, from "The West Wing" and "Sports Night" to "The American President," has been described as idealistic.

"A lot of what I've written, I've found, tends to get painted with its own lowest common denominator," says Sorkin, who was 28 when his career took off with the Broadway play, "A Few Good Men," and the subsequent Tom Cruise-Jack Nicholson movie.

"They say 'The West Wing' is a flag-waving, lump-in-your-throat thing. And it's that plenty of times. But it's a lot of other stuff, too, that isn't as loud."

Sorkin is interrupted by the arrival of his parents, Claire and Bernard. The couple has come from Scarsdale to visit their son and his 22-month-old daughter, Roxy, who is napping in a room one floor away, watched over by Sorkin's estranged wife, Julia Bingham. (The couple separated not long after his drug arrest last year. "They're still good friends," Sorkin's publicist says later.)

After handing his mother a newspaper to read, Sorkin smoothly segues into a frank conversation about Rob Lowe, who plays deputy communications director Sam Seaborn.

Lowe, originally envisioned as the show's star, will exit the series in March if Warner Bros. TV doesn't give him a hefty pay raise from his current salary of about $75,000 per episode.

The dispute stems, Sorkin says, from the salary bump that Janney, Spencer, Bradley Whitford and Richard Schiff got from about $30,000 per episode after hinting that they might not show up for work at the beginning of last season.

But unlike Lowe, those four actors — who, Sorkin points out, all went on to win individual acting Emmys — agreed to lower salaries when hired in 1999. The producers promised to make up the difference if the show was successful, explains Sorkin.

"The issue is a simple one: At the moment, Rob is paid as much money as his costars. Rob wants to be paid more money than his costars. Warner Brothers is unwilling to do that to the rest of the cast, and I'm unwilling to do that to the rest of the cast," he says.

The refusal also has to do with the program's staggering production cost: According to Sorkin, "The West Wing" spends at least $2.5 million on each show, but NBC only pays a licensing fee of $1.5 million. As the show's highest-paid actor, Martin Sheen's reported salary of $300,000 per episode comprises a significant portion of the budget. (Sorkin says Sheen was able to negotiate that deal because he'd initially signed a three-year contract as a guest actor, and his character quickly evolved into the series' lead.)

As for Lowe, Sorkin's "fingers are crossed that he'll stay, but crossing fingers is all that can be done at this point."

And how about Sorkin? Will he remain as the show's backbone through what is expected to be a lengthy run? Hasn't he already started to step back by semi-surrendering control to other writers?

"Easy there with the step back! They are two scripts out of 75!" he shouts. "I really don't want to read that I've taken a step back and handed 'The West Wing' over to somebody else. Two out of 75 episodes!"

He shakes his head and gestures to the script in progress. "Taking a step back, good Lord! Do you see this on the floor?"

Seriously, though? "I won't be with 'The West Wing' for as long as it plays out, but I have no intention of leaving right now."

Sorkin seems to take his career day by day, much like his sobriety.

Following his recent arrest, he told reporters that his drug use isn't anything like the cocaine habit he had in 1995, when he entered a rehab program at the Hazelden Institute in Minnesota. He's been chastened by the humiliation that he suffered through last year, and he's now reluctant to offer too much about his personal life.

"After the embarrassment to my parents, and the embarrassment to the rest of my family, and the embarrassment to the people I work with and work for. To go through the criminal justice system in a public way, after that, the loss was just . . ."

He trails off for a moment, and refocuses instead on the effect the arrest has had on his work.

"I don't think a writer is doing himself any favors by letting people know a lot about him on a personal level. I don't want to get between the audience and what it is that I'm writing. I felt, last year, any time I wrote anything about decriminalizing marijuana, for instance, that the audience would, say, 'Welllll.'"

Then Sorkin asks for the time, and it's clear that this conversation has come to an end.

But he can't resist adding one more point, comparing his own dilemma to that of an American playwright who's always denied that one of his dramas was based on his relationship with a troubled silver screen legend.

"I think 'After the Fall' is a great, great play," he says, "if you never knew Arthur Miller was married to Marilyn Monroe."