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White House rookie: Joshua Malina rode the inside track to NBC's 'West Wing'

Rick Kushman
The Sacramento Bee

BURBANK -- It was a small scene on "The West Wing," almost a throwaway, except nothing's a throwaway on this show. And maybe the key line was tucked deep inside the banter and counterbanter.

President Jed Bartlet and his staff were working on a speech, the air thick with wit. Someone mentioned speechwriter Will Bailey.

"Which one's Will?" Bartlet asked. Good question. While we're at it, who is that playing him and, really, why is he there instead of Sam Seaborn?

Short answer: Will's the new guy, not, by the way, a replacement -- don't say replacement -- for Sam (Rob Lowe). In the scene, Will's eyes popped wide when the president said his name, then he carefully, shyly raised his hand. Will's still working his way into the fold.

The man playing him is Joshua Malina, terrific actor, charming guy, a nice blend of talent, mild confidence and self-effacing wit. "The West Wing's" creator, Aaron Sorkin, calls him "a guy you want to come to work with every day." Malina's already part of the fold.

"There's good chemistry," says one of the series' stars, Bradley Whitford, who plays Deputy Chief of Staff Josh Lyman.

"It's like acting with my cousin -- though, you know, my cousin's a lousy actor." Whitford and Malina know each other from Broadway, but that's getting ahead of the story. Point is: good chemistry.

Oh, and Sorkin swears that Malina's gig on "The West Wing" has nothing to do with that little incident a few years back when Malina saved Sorkin's life, though, yes, that is a pretty big deal. We'll get to that.

In any case, Malina is sort of an out-ofnowhere guy, and he's on this gold-plated show, NBC's three-for-three-time Emmy winner. He's there because, like everyone else in the cast, he's got the chops. Just stay away from the notion of Malina stepping in for Lowe, who, as fans of "The West Wing" know by now, left for his own development deal with, it turns out, NBC.

Malina, 37, brushes the replacement idea aside with versions of "I'm not worthy," though he does quote the fan Web site that said Sorkin didn't write enough for Sam because Lowe was too good-looking and "now that shouldn't be a problem."

"I prefer to think of it as a series of events," Malina said. "One actor decided to leave, and then the powers that be added another actor.

"I think I'm pretty safe saying people aren't going to look at me and think, 'He's the new hunk.' Maybe some people will be picking up the slack, but it ain't gonna be me."

Ladies and gentlemen, we give you Joshua Malina, an honest man in Hollywood.

Or possibly just humble. Actually, Malina's vaguely athletic-looking, and if he's got maybe a slightly wide face, his dark hair and eyes add up to a perfectly decent-looking guy.

"My wife tells me I'm handsome. I tell her, 'I know you think that. You married me,' " he says.

Anyway, this isn't about looks. Forget about looks. Malina's fine. This is about acting, because on "The West Wing" -- Rob Lowe and his movie-star looks included -- it's always first about acting.

And Malina can act. Though, you know, if we're talking about looks, and maybe what I really mean is style, Malina, like Sorkin, fits that proudly nerdish mold, that slightly dorky smart guy who's smart enough to know he's slightly dorky. In other words, the type that so often ends up a Sorkin hero.

So maybe that helps explain what Malina is doing there. He lands squarely in Sorkin's soft spot.

"It's true," Sorkin said. "I remember Tom Hanks saying, 'I'm a goofy-looking guy. The reason I get to play sexy leading men is because writers are goofy-looking guys and they want to be sexy leading men.'

"What I really have an affinity for is taking guys who would otherwise be thought of as nerdy and making their intelligence and commitment sexy," Sorkin said. "It's very easy to do that with Josh."

And, yes, that's a compliment.

A fateful bite
Still, to see the whole picture, we need to start in New York in 1990, back on a winter night at the Port Authority Bowling Lanes in Manhattan. Yup. Bowling.
Malina and Sorkin had been friends for a while already. They've known each other more or less since high school, and Malina was acting in Sorkin's Broadway play, "A Few Good Men." There is a Broadway softball league that in the winter turns into a bowling league, and that gets us to the Port Authority lanes and Sorkin taking a bite from a cheeseburger.

"At that moment," Sorkin said, "someone made a joke about Port Authority 'leatherburgers' and I started choking."

Perfect timing. Everyone thought Sorkin was doing schtick. He's thrashing around and people are laughing.

"I kinda fell to the ground and knocked a bunch of bowling balls on the rack to the ground with me," he said. "That was enough to get Josh's attention."

"I wasn't overly familiar with the Heimlich maneuver," Malina said. "It was not performed with great finesse. Basically, I beat him up from behind. I do remember thinking, 'My friend's going to die in my arms.' "

"Honest to God, I really couldn't breathe," Sorkin said. "I was well on my way to dying."

The Heimlich beating, besides cracking a couple of ribs, expelled the burger bite and sent it flying across the lanes. And this being a Broadway crowd, it also sent people into weeping dramatics.

"We decided at that point," Sorkin said, "we'd stop bowling."

"And as a result," Malina said, "I'm freakishly conscious about people choking. My wife's constantly saying, 'I'm fine. I'm not choking. I just coughed.' "

Leap forward to a recent winter afternoon in Southern California. Malina and Sorkin sit in the warm sun on a plush wooden deck built on the Warner Bros. lot.

On one side, the Hollywood Hills rise up green and steep. On another is what looks like an entrance to the White House but is, of course, a door to Sound Stage 28, home of "The West Wing."

Malina is sitting here with his friend, talking about his life and looking like he'll pinch himself.

"This is like my personal Lotto jackpot," Malina says. "I'd do this forever. I'd play Will in a walker if they let me."

Sorkin has heard this before. He laughs but tries to make the point that Malina has earned this and every break.

"When it was really looking like Rob would be leaving, which got us all very sad, we had a meeting and started talking about people," Sorkin said. "In the two minutes it took me to get back to my office, I called Tommy (Schlamme, a co-creator) and said I'm absolutely convinced we have to get Josh Malina.

"And, amazingly, after that phone call, I opened my e-mail, and there was an e-mail from Josh."

"Just that day," Malina said, "I read in Variety that Rob was planning to leave. I thought I'd do a little fishing expedition. I think I said, 'What about using someone who's less attractive and would work for less money?' "

"I e-mailed him back," Sorkin said. "I said, 'Yeah, OK. I'll have you on the show.' "

"I'm like, really? Really?" said Malina. "I called my wife in to read it. I said, 'This sounds like there might actually be something there.' "

Clearly, both Sorkin and Malina have been through this act. Malina is as egoless as they come in Hollywood -- and, yes, that's a compliment, too. He makes fun of himself for what he is not -- hunk, movie star, big name -- and downplays what he is -- smart, adaptable, talented, good guy.

'A really good friend'
He's also someone who might someday write a book called "Quit Now, and Other Practical Advice for Aspiring Actors," which tells you Malina's assessment of the odds for success in show business. That also tells you why he swears such loyalty to Sorkin, the man who, either directly or indirectly, got him on Broadway, into movies such as "A Few Good Men," "The American President" and "Bulworth," and roles in TV series such as HBO's "The Larry Sanders Show" and ABC's "Sports Night."

"I feel like I've done a good job on the opportunities Aaron's given me," Malina said. "I'm not trying to be falsely humble. But there are a lot of actors out there who've been plugging away as long as I have who are not going to get those opportunities.

"I have to remind myself how blessed I am, how fortunate I am to have a really good friend who's an incredible creative force."

Pause.

"It's disturbing how much I can trace back to Aaron," Malina said.

He includes in all this his meeting his wife, Melissa. But once you know that story, it sounds more like a predestined act of nature, or at least of Jenny Busfield -- actor-director Tim Busfield and Malina are brothers-in-law -- because it was Jenny who knew Malina would marry her sister, Melissa, before Josh ever met her.

When they did meet, it was in Sorkin's hotel room in Los Angeles -- Melissa lived in L.A. -- when Malina was part of the national touring company for "A Few Good Men," so, yes, maybe Sorkin did have some connection to the love of Malina's life, too.

"Josh has been publicly flattering about his association with me, but it's been absolutely mutually beneficial," Sorkin said. "He's been stellar in everything he's done."

The two go back to their days in suburban high schools outside New York. Malina grew up in New Rochelle and his older cousins, Stuart and Joel, were buddies with Sorkin.

Even then they were heading toward show business. Malina committed to an acting career when he was a kid doing community theater -- "I just felt I was an actor," he said. "It saved me a tremendous amount of angst not having to decide" -- and by that time, Sorkin was already "a big cheese" (Malina's words) in high school drama circles.

When Malina graduated from Yale in 1988 as a theater major, he headed for New York, got a low-level job or two with help from his father, Robert, who co-produced a couple of Broadway plays, but was, by most definitions, struggling.

"My mother said, 'You really should look up that Aaron Sorkin.' I'm a good Jewish boy, I follow my parents' advice," Malina said. "It was really good advice."

"I had already been hearing great things about Josh from his cousins," Sorkin said. "I really liked him when I met him. We were playing poker one night and I told him we were casting an understudy role (in 'A Few Good Men') the next day and he should come audition. He got the job, and it's important to note this was before he saved my life."

Malina quickly worked his way to a major onstage role -- again, before that leatherburger moment -- and spent 15 months on Broadway, along the way earning membership in what he calls the Mighty Sorkin Players, a crew of talented actors who can handle the rhythms, speed and complex dialogue of Sorkin's writing. Also in that Broadway bunch were Tim Busfield and Whitford.

"Josh became a friend right away," Busfield said. "He and Jenny immediately hit it off, too."

"Apropos of nothing," Malina said, "Jenny told me one day, 'If you ever meet my sister, you'll marry her.' Her sister wasn't even in town."

"I knew they would get married," Jenny Busfield said. "I knew he would meet her and they'd get married. I loved him when I met him. He's very clever and smart and he likes clever and smart women. It was meant to be."

That was still 1990. Malina and Melissa met in 1992 in that hotel room. They married in 1996 and have a girl, Isabel, and a boy, Avi.

"I immediately wanted him in the family," Tim Busfield said. "He can loan me money from all the poker winnings I owe him."

Side note: Malina, according to most accounts, is a smart poker player, though he denies it, which is what smart poker players do. He professes, actually, to be an underachiever, a guy who does mostly what comes easily to him.

"Seriously," he said, "I think I had some potential as a writer, but it's such hard work."

His latest endeavor in underachievement is chess, a game Malina says he started playing after seeing his 6-year-old neighbor come home with a trophy. Malina read and researched and now plays multiple games online.

"I'm not particularly good, but incredibly devoted," he says. "I did beat my neighbor. My wife says, 'He's 6.' I say, 'But he went to chess camp.'"

"He doesn't have time to be playing chess," says Tim Busfield, sounding more like a brother than an in-law. "Buddy, you've got babies at home to take care of."

In-law as role model
Malina clearly admires his brother-in-law. He quotes Busfield often on acting tips, calls him a role model for being both professional and "still a mensch to everyone," and agrees that he and Busfield came to acting careers from the same, uh, technical side.

"We're not pretty boys, if that's what you're saying," Malina said.

He's perhaps most impressed by Busfield's directing career, and his understanding of the production side of TV and movies.

"I'm as close to being able to direct as the first day I started acting," Malina said. "It's the underachiever in me. I've learned nothing about the technical aspects of this business."

When Malina finished "A Few Good Men" on Broadway, he was still learning about the hiring aspects of showbiz. (That chapter in his would-be book goes by "Take Any Job.") When the play was made into the 1992 feature film starring Tom Cruise and Jack Nicholson, casting people suggested, as they often do, that Malina would be right for a major role. He ended up with a small part.

"Still, I made my film debut with Jack Nicholson," Malina said. "I literally had five words, three of them 'yes,' two of them 'sir,' but if you're going to make a film debut, it's nice making it with Jack Nicholson."

But Malina figured his foot was in the door.

"Naively, I'm, like, "I'm a Broadway guy, my career has started.' For nine months, I didn't get another job."

By 1992, he was living in Los Angeles because he considered himself first a comic actor, and, he figured, TV was a factory for male comic actors.

Not, it turned out, for all male comic actors.

"There were times when my parents gave me more than just emotional support," he said.

Malina did work enough as an actor to pay the bills, and he landed small roles in TV shows and films, the best of which was the 1995 feature written by Sorkin, "The American President."

Then came the day when Sorkin got some of his acting friends together to read a play he was staging in Los Angeles.

"It was the usual mighty Sorkin players," Malina said. "My role was the one where you just had to breathe the lines and get laughs."

The actor-readers were sitting in chairs. There were maybe 20 other people in the room, among them Garry Shandling, Annette Bening and Warren Beatty.

"I remember Warren Beatty doubling over, laughing so hard," Malina said, "and I'm thinking he's an incredibly great audience."

From that reading, Malina landed a role in Beatty's 1998 film "Bulworth" and Shandling's brilliant HBO series "The Larry Sanders Show."

Then in 1999, Malina got his first regular TV series role, playing a young, smart, slightly innocent TV producer on Sorkin's sparkling, kinetic "Sports Night," a show that would be mishandled by ABC as badly as a network could mishandle a show.

It lasted two seasons, then Malina became part of the cast for an NBC comedy, "Imagine That," built around his poker buddy Hank Azaria. Despite early encouragement and a deal to shoot at least 13 episodes, only six shows were actually made, and just two aired, in January 2002.

When Malina talks about his career, there is almost a joyful retelling of his stumbles and disappointments. He's confident enough, and realistic enough, to know that, as he said, if a show gets 10 million viewers, at least 1 million of them will hate you.

He loves a review of "Sports Night" that raved about the show and everyone on it, except him. "It especially praised Sabrina Lloyd for being able to pretend she was in love with me," he said.

But the sudden, unexpected demise of Azaria's show a year ago "put the fear of God in me," Malina said.

"We had finally bought a house," he said. "My wife was pregnant, we already had one child. My whole world fell apart. It was the day we moved in, I was sitting in my house, feeling an incredible sense of accomplishment, and I got a phone call that said, 'Don't come to work tomorrow.' "

But that adds to the Lotto-winning feeling now.

"When we look back at everything, now I think I'm glad that didn't work out, or that I didn't get another job," Malina said, "or else I wouldn't be on 'The West Wing.'

"What a great thing: to be able to say I don't have any real regrets about my life."

Showdown with Sheen
On another recent day on "The West Wing" set, all of the senior staff cast members are working on a complicated scene in the Oval Office. In between takes, Malina plays Excalibur Touch Chess, an electronic hand-held game that appears to be winning.

The scene takes from early morning to mid-afternoon to shoot, and it involves President Bartlet (Martin Sheen) giving an emotional, complex explanation about a major policy change, brought out in part by Will's insistent moral arguments.

Though Sheen does almost all of the talking, it's a carefully choreographed moment, and at the end, Will and the president share a look of understanding. Or at least they're supposed to. Malina keeps getting hustled out the door by the momentum of the scene.

After they'd run through it in rehearsal and then for the cameras, they broke to reset the lights and start again. As everyone starts to drift away, Sheen calls out, "Hey, Malina, here's looking at you."

So he fits. Very nicely.

As for the short answer on how he got there:

"When we were filling the job, it was like the NFL draft," Sorkin said. "You have your charts and your boards, and at the end of the day you just take the best athlete out there. That was Josh Malina."

That athlete, by the way, doesn't care why he got drafted.

"I don't know if Aaron really thinks I'm talented," Malina said, "or if he just likes to have me around when he's eating. I'm comfortable with both."

Posted by Ryo at March 2, 2003 07:46 PM