Bartlet4America News Archive

Interview with Thomas Schlamme, Director and Executive Producer, "Sports Night"

Last season Thomas Schlamme successfully managed the task of executive producing and directing "Sports Night" and collected a directing Emmy along the way. This season, Schlamme added another television credit with yet another high-profile primetime show, the NBC series "West Wing" a drama centering on the president (played by Martin Sheen). In a recent conversation, Schlamme said that with more than a decade in television behind him, he feels increasingly more comfortable assuming the executive producer role, along with longtime partners like Aaron Sorkin and John Wells.

During his career, Schlamme had a succesful partnership with another television wunderkind, David E. Kelley, and directed episodes of "The Practice" and "Ally McBeal." He also directed multiple episodes of "Friends," "Mad About You," "The Larry Sanders Show," "Chicago Hope" and "ER" -- including the show's live broadcast in 1997.

But Schlamme initially earned a reputation in television directing comedy, in particular the "Tracey Takes On ..." show for HBO with Tracey Ullman, for which he also received an Emmy. Also for HBO, he directed comedy specials with Whoopi Goldberg, Bette Midler, Rowan Atkinson and John Leguizamo.

As a director, Schlamme forayed into features less successfully, first with "So I Married an Axe Murderer," with Mike Myers. He also directed "You So Crazy" with Martin Lawrence and "Miss Firecracker" with Holly Hunter and Tim Robbins.

What is it about the partnership with Sorkin that works for you?
There are many things that work. But I relate very specifically to his style of storytelling and its blend of comedy and drama. There is an incredible underlying optimism and his characters possess enormous passion. That is very powerful to me, and the way I work.

A rap sheet for me had always been that I would do a drama and the producers would worry I was going to make it too funny; I would do a comedy and they would worry that I was going to make it too dramatic. So with "Sports Night," I finally had the opportunity to make the funny more dramatic and vice versa. It felt as if Aaron was handing me a recipe that exactly reflected my world view.

Is he hands-on during the actual shooting of the show?
Not in the actual shooting, but he is very involved in the process of putting the show together. In "Sports Night," we were able to get the best of both worlds of half-hour and hourlong television. The thing that I love about half-hour television is that you are able to rehearse; you have two days to put on a play. What I don't like is having one night to shoot it; it makes it very difficult to tell the story visually. In hour television, you are able to visually tell stories -- in some ways far more effectively than you can in a movie -- but you have absolutely no rehearsal time.

With "Sports Night," the idea was to blend these two creatures together. I would completely stage the show in two days with all the movement, with everything. And that's where Aaron was very hands-on and helpful. He had suggestions to make a beat work more effectively and solutions for a moment in the piece that didn't quite work. Or if I had misinterpreted or misread something, he would clarify it. It worked the other way as well: he would see things performed differently from how he had imagined and was very pleased.

It was always within these run-throughs that we were able to come up with the best way to present the show. Then the next three days I would be shooting the show and he would be writing the next show or coming down and watching it or basically just being a cheerleader.

Was there a good deal of trial and error in terms of finding the tone of "Sports Night"?
Shockingly, no. I think we found the tone in the pilot. In television -- even in great shows -- you can go back and look at the pilot and realize that it doesn't look anything like the show in the second season or the third season. People were stiff, they didn't know each other, they were still being a little too broad or too dramatic. But with "Sports Night," we were able to find a balance right from the beginning -- obviously it has evolved and grown. I think the tone exactly reflects the way that Aaron and I see the world: Life doesn't have a day of drama and then a day of comedy. Life has this rhythm and one never knows what's going to happen next. And that is in his writing. Aaron's writing does not indicate what is coming next. He's so often ahead of everybody and we don't quite know where we're going. That's what makes it great television -- interesting television.

You are involved in two high-profile shows. What was your initial reaction to "West Wing"?
Almost two years ago, the pilots of "Sports Night" and "West Wing" were sent to me. I read them back-to-back and was overwhelmed. They were so clear, so precise in their point of view. I called my agent, who said "West Wing" was on hold. Then by working with Aaron on "Sports Night," it became clear that we should do "West Wing" together. If they had been done at the same, I would have never done "West Wing." As it turned out, it was even better that I was able to be involved in both the shows and share the responsibilities with Aaron.

What I've realized after this year is that there is a trade-off: I direct less, but I get to be involved in two great television shows.

How many shows are you scheduled to direct?
I did the first episode of "Sports Night" and will do the last episode of the year. Last year, I think I did 17 of the first 23 episodes. And on "West Wing," I'll be doing five episodes.

How do you manage your time between shows?
When I'm directing, I'm only on that specific show. We're lucky the shows are only five minutes away from each other, so when I'm not directing, I feel like I'm on the shuttle system between them. Most of my time now is spent in post-production, trying to get these shows scored, finished and on the air and dealing with the networks and generally managing the partnership.

This is a great time of political cynicism in America. How do you approach the political subject matter in "West Wing"?
It's easy for me. I am politically astute to a degree and I'm a news junkie. Both of my parents fled Nazi Germany; I'm first generation and the child of immigrants. There is a level of patriotism I grew up with that always overshadowed the nitty-gritty of the ugly underbelly of politics. Given the particular cynicism during the past two or three years, I have been lucky enough to have worked for the current president. I spent two nights in the Lincoln Bedroom.

As my wife, older son and I were pulling away from the White House in a cab, I remember looking back at the building and feeling so safe. What I took away from that experience was how hard these people were working and how difficult their jobs are -- well beyond what any of us think. What these people are doing is monumental -- whether or not it's always in line with my own personal political beliefs. These are people who are filled with hubris and flaws -- the exact flaws that every person who wants that much power has had since the beginning of civilization.

No matter how compromised we've all become, these people are still running the world. And it's not glitz and glamour and silliness. They're reading volumes of material every day and I have incredible respect for that. At the same time, I certainly don't mind exposing them. So when Aaron writes a line about how Democrats don't trust you with your own money, or whatever it might be, I get that. I think we should point a lot of fingers at all of those things. But to be honest, I would not be interested in doing a show in order to be as cynical as possible about Washington. That would be hard for me. It would also be hard for me to do that about Hollywood, for which I sometimes have a great deal of cynicism.

How involved were you in casting and how difficult was it to cast the role of the president, played by Martin Sheen?
I was very involved in the casting and was a champion of Martin. In the pilot, the character of the president only appears in the last five minutes. Aaron was not interested in a show about the American president -- he had already done a movie about that. His interest was the people who work for the president.

Through Martin's involvement in the process, we were actually able to humanize the office while at the same time maintaining a high degree of respect for it. Aaron is not interested in what we all see about the president, he's interested in what we don't see, what we imagine.

I shot a scene the other day where Martin is with the president of Indonesia, who is absolutely disconnected and has nothing to say. It's all a photo opportunity. And it was very human to me: Here you're supposed to meet these new people and you just don't connect. I've felt like that and I guarantee that has happened to a president.

What sort of research do you do in terms of looking at the behavior of statesmen in news reels and so on?
We have an extensive library for all the actors, writers and staff, including documentaries and news footage from the Ronald Reagan Library. There is video of Reagan walking around and in meetings. It's very fascinating. A very different White House from Bill Clinton's.

I used resources such as George Stephanopoulos' "All Too Human" and "Inside the Oval Office," an amazing collection of recordings in the Oval Office from Franklin D. Roosevelt through Clinton. "Abuse of Power" is another book of transcriptions of the Nixon tapes. What you get from these sources is a sense of dialogue. For those of us who are already history buffs and political junkies, it's a treat.

Given your firsthand experience of the White House, how important it is for you to create a sense of authenticity out here in Burbank?
Very early on, Aaron and I realized we could never make this 100% authentic because neither of us has really lived or worked there. What we can do is try to get an emotional truth, both in language and picture. Some of that is romanticized, of course, but not to the point where it feels unrealistic. At the same time we're not making a documentary. When I was at the White House, I can't even begin to tell you how overwhelmed I was by looking at the objects on the wall and the artifacts and thinking that it was part of history -- albeit a young history.

So when we designed the set, it was very important to us that we bear in mind the history. This building is our history. Since President Kennedy's time, it keeps getting chiseled up into cubicles and boxes and more offices -- it seems like as bureaucracy grows the beauty decreases. So we stole the best of those things to try to make our White House.

In your career, have you made a conscious effort to focus on directing for television?
I've made a conscious effort to go where the best material is. It's why I've been lucky enough to work on really good television shows. A great deal of it is luck and also the fact that I was patient. This is a long career. I consider myself a filmmaker. I work in film. Sometimes it ends up on television, sometimes it ends up on cable and sometimes it ends up on a big screen. But it's the stories and the way that we tell those stories I am most interested in. Right now, I feel blessed that I'm getting to do great material.