Bartlet4America News Archive

Meet the Prez

With a capital cast and provocative plots, 'The West Wing' generates sky-high approval ratings and just a hint of scandal

by KEN TUCKER
Entertainment Weekly

The President is hopping mad.

"George W. Bush is a wimp! Jesus, man, gimme a break: This is a spoiled-rotten kid who doesn't have a clue--who doesn't have a heart! He's a very dangerous man. He makes his father look like a raving liberal!"

That's Martin Sheen offering election-year analysis in the thundering, authoritative manner he brings to his role as Commander-in-Chief, President Josiah Bartlet, in NBC's hit political drama The West Wing.

"This guy I play," says the 59-year-old actor, "he has a liberal agenda; he's in the right corner on all the issues, from the environment to women's rights to labor and the arms race." Gee, isn't there anything he doesn't like about this fictitious President dreamed up by the show's creator and writer, Aaron Sorkin?

"Well, I don't like attacking an Arab country every time there's a terrorist [problem]," he says referring to an air strike Bartlet ordered in the series's third episode. "I prefer to settle these problems diplomatically, nonviolently. But that's me; I'm not the President." In fact, Sheen, who in his private life has been arrested 61 times during political protests of such issues as nuclear armament, concludes: "I think the republic is actually safer that I'm not in the White House."

But on average, nearly 13 million Americans are in President Bartlet's White House every Wednesday night at nine, making West Wing one of the season's biggest freshman dramatic hits, and giving the lie to the common TV wisdom that shows about politics are Nielsen-box washouts. The crackling, credible problems Sorkin dreams up for Bartlet and his senior staff--including Rob Lowe as deputy communications director Sam Seaborn, L.A. Law's John Spencer as chief of staff Leo McGarry, Bradley Whitford as deputy chief of staff Josh Lyman, Richard Schiff as hangdog communications director Toby Ziegler, and Allison Janney as press secretary C.J. Cregg--are engrossing, enlightening, and enraging the nation during this election year.

Did you see the recent episode in which Leo, who's nearly been forced out of his job when a White House staffer leaks the fact that he's been treated for alcohol and drug dependency, allows the rat staffer, whom Lowe's Sam had fired, to stay at her job?

"I got three e-mails from the White House saying 'That girl's ass stays fired!'" says the 38-year-old Sorkin. E-mails from whom exactly? "Oh, various staffers--I can't divulge their names."

From his wide grin, it's obvious that this is the kind of high-level rabble-rousing in which Sorkin revels. The man who writes or cowrites almost every episode of West Wing as well as nearly every installment of ABC's innovative sitcom Sports Night is sitting in his Burbank office, wearing an Amherst sweatshirt and gobbling fistfuls of Good & Plentys out of a salad bowl. He washes the candy down with one of the two dozen bottles of Yoo-Hoo chocolate drink on a table nearby. For Sports Night, Sorkin draws on his own love of sports and ESPN for inspiration; for West Wing, he relies on research he did while writing the 1995 feature film The American President, not to mention a cadre of real-world politicos--on his staff are former Clinton press secretary Dee Dee Myers, Carter administration insider and pollster Pat Caddell, and Lawrence O'Donnell Jr., a political columnist and former aide to Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan.

How does Sorkin use this payrolled brain trust? "Well, for instance, a lot of it will be, 'I need a scene where Leo interrupts an intelligence meeting to tell the President that the chairman of the Federal Reserve has had a heart attack and died,'" says Sorkin. "Now, I don't know what an intelligence briefing looks like, so I say, 'Could someone find [that] out and write it out on a piece of paper for me?' Sometimes it'll be written down as cold facts. Dee Dee Myers will always take a crack at writing it out in dialogue form, and what I enjoy doing with Dee Dee is making fun of her dialogue in actual scripts.

"There's a scene in a [recent] episode in which an African-American woman, the secretary of housing and urban development [played by CCH Pounder], has lost her cool in a committee meeting and accused the committee chairman of being a racist. And the way [Dee Dee] did it was by using the phrase 'If the shoe fits...' In my script I keep having people say, 'If she was going to lose her cool, couldn't she find some better way of phrasing it than "If the shoe fits?"' That kind of thing drives Dee Dee crazy because I spend the entire episode mocking her dialogue." Myers, for her part, laughs good-naturedly and admits, "I'm learning a lot about writing dialogue from Aaron." O'Donnell, whose story ideas are similarly recast by the show's creator, says, "Do I mind being rewritten by Aaron Sorkin? It's an honor and an education. When I want my own prose to survive somewhere, I write a book."

On a popsicle-cold, windy day near Washington, D.C., Martin Sheen, John Spencer, Allison Janney, and Dule Hill, who plays the President's aide Charlie, are living out one of Sorkin's political scenarios. The actors and a crew that includes Wing executive producer and director Thomas Schlamme are standing on a tarmac at Dulles Airport, shooting a scene that aired Feb. 9, in which the President and his entourage emerge from Air Force One and scuttle into a limousine to be given an update from Spencer's Leo about a pending prison execution. Except the plane they're currently emerging from isn't Air Force One--it's a Virgin Atlantic 747 complete with a painting on its side called "Scarlet Lady"--a curvy pinup girl in a red dress that ultimately gets digitally removed in the editing room and replaced by a staid presidential seal. If they couldn't get Air Force One, why drag the cast from its usual studio in California to shoot in D.C.? "The actors' teeth wouldn't chatter as convincingly," says Schlamme, only half kidding. "And we usually do get Air Force One, by the way," he says.

The show films location shots in D.C. four times a year. In fact, Wing has inspired a mini-showbiz boom in the capital city. Walk over to an extra in a Virginia state trooper's uniform waiting to be filmed as part of the President's cavalcade and he'll tell you yes, he's a real trooper, named Matt Hanley. "I do this in my off-duty time," he says. And when he's on duty? "I escort President Clinton places." Like where? "Meetings. The golf course." Next, chat up a fellow in a black suit fiddling with a wire in his ear and muttering into his lapel and he'll tell you no, he's not a real Secret Service man--he's an actor named Scott Goodhue. He and other Washington-based actors are hired by the day to be extras; today, Goodhue is the agent who opens the limo door for Sheen and then slaps the roof of the car to signal the procession to move beyond camera range.

Seeking refuge from the chill air in a smaller car with blasting heat, Allison Janney is asked whether it was a tough decision to suspend a healthy feature-film career (American Beauty, 10 Things I Hate About You) for TV-series work. "You think I made a big mistake, don't you?" she says, staring at you with the same baleful look she gives President Bartlet when he's said something ninny-ish.

Informed that au contraire, her C.J. has captured the hearts of intelligent TV viewers throughout the land, Janney winks slyly and says: "I was hoping for something like that. I figured at the very least doing a TV show would increase my visibility and maybe help me develop some clout and producing skills. Who knew this was going to be a great show with fun people to act with, too?"

Back outside, there are endless, feet-numbing takes on this freezing January day, but Sheen seems to be having fun. After director Schlamme gets the shot he wants, Sheen, in a green peacoat and red plaid scarf--a Christmas tree of a President--stands at the head of the roll-away staircase at the open door of the airplane. He looks down at everyone arrayed around him, and suddenly he lifts his right arm and gives a big, swirling salute. Sonofagun: The self-described "Catholic radical" is doing Richard Nixon's famous post-resignation farewell gesture.

A week later, in considerably warmer California, the ironies are becoming dizzying--a Hollywood-made TV show supposedly set in Washington is filming an episode about going to Hollywood. The Wing cast and crew have moved into a pink mansion in posh Bel Air to shoot an episode airing this week in which President Bartlet comes to the West Coast to pump money from a campaign fund-raiser, played by guest star Bob Balaban with a peroxide-blond crew cut. The scene being filmed today involves testy words exchanged by Balaban's David Geffen-like mogul and Whitford's Josh: The former wants the President to come out more strongly for gay rights; the latter has been instructed to say the President isn't comfortable doing this.

"See, I would disagree that this is a liberal show," says Sorkin. Bartlet "is a Democrat, [but] we have seen him be very hawkish in response to a military attack, and [he didn't] commute the sentence of the first federal prisoner executed since 1963. We know now that he is not particularly vocal about gay rights and is trying to avoid the issue of gays in the military." While it's hard to find a conservative who'll admit to watching the show--George F. Will, William Kristol, and former Reagan speechwriter Peggy Noonan all told EW they don't--the show has an avid following inside the Beltway, as the cast found out when they met the President at the real White House on Jan. 27. Lowe says Clinton's staff is "obsessed" with the show and appreciates its "idealized, positive view of politics." Elizabeth Drew, The New Yorker's longtime Washington correspondent, watches, and was rewarded with the sight of Josh carrying around her most recent book, The Corruption of American Politics, in a recent episode. "I think [the West Wing staff] is a better bunch of people than you usually run into in Washington," observes Drew. "This President is certainly a nicer, more even-tempered one to his staff than I've seen in a long while."

Between takes in Bel Air, Whitford seems like the most cheerful man on earth: He's on a hit drama, he's married to an actress--Jane Kaczmarek--who's starring in the season's new hit sitcom (she's the indispensably loony mom in Malcolm in the Middle), and their second child--a boy named George--was born Dec. 23. "I know, it's kinda too-much-good, isn't it?" says Whitford, grinning. "But listen, I saw my wife struggle for so many years in this business--" he pauses, savoring her success, his voice quieting, quavering a little. "Well, it's just great."

Waiting for his call to the set, Rob Lowe is eating a honey peanut Balance Bar in his trailer. "When I got a call to do something called West Wing," he says, "I thought, 'What's that? A spin-off of Pensacola: Wings of Gold?'" But far from riding James Brolin's syndicated coattails, Wing "turned out to be my dream project: I wanted to do a TV show instead of movies so I could spend more time at home with my wife and kids, and I've been a political junkie for years. Throw in Aaron Sorkin's writing, and I said, 'Where do I sign on for this campaign?'" Asked about rumors that he's unhappy (the story goes that Sheen's role, originally conceived as a once-a-month cameo, was enlarged, resulting in shrinkage in Lowe's part) and he's quick to say, "That's a tabloid thing." So he's sticking with the series? He pauses, either choosing his words carefully or picking a molar free of nut meat with his tongue. "I am in [the show] as long as I am creatively happy." Spoken like a guy who plays a speechwriter.

When Sorkin is told of Lowe's quote, he responds with equal care: "I hope he stays creatively happy for a long time.... Look, I want people who want to work, who want to run with the ball.... Each of these actors could carry his or her own show, so it's a very glamorous problem to have--getting the ball to each of them every week."

Sometimes Sorkin fumbles (see the "Diary of a Frazzled TV Writer" sidebar). One such bobble was a failure to cast any black actors in prominent roles at the start of the show. "It was a mistake," Sorkin says bluntly. But it resulted in good luck for Dule Hill, a young actor who'd hoofed on Broadway in The Tap Dance Kid and who was quickly cast as the President's shrewdly quiet, sensitive aide. (Off camera, Sheen and Hill share a joshing relationship. "Why'd you get that tattoo?" Sheen rags on Hill, just as he might on, say, real-life sons Charlie Sheen and Emilio Estevez. "Why do you young people insist on mutilating your bodies? Tell me the truth--did you get that tattoo once you got the series?" Hill just smiles, but later says seriously that the tattoo on his right shoulder is his "family coat of arms.")

Another Sorkin mistake was casting Moira Kelly as a political consultant who began the series as Josh's ex-girlfriend but whose scowly, abrasive role has evaporated into a series of background grimaces. "Moira is a terrific actress," says Sorkin diplomatically. "[But] we just weren't the right thing for her. She expressed that she felt the same way, and as a result, story lines haven't been invested in that character, because we knew that at the end of the year, we'd be shaking hands and parting company." Bye-bye, Moira, who did not respond to requests to comment on her departure.

In her place, Marlee Matlin has already filmed two episodes as a tough consultant who'll tangle with Josh, and Sorkin confirms the rumor that next season, a few younger female characters will be added to the show--"because we work really hard and we deserve it," he kids, before admitting it's in response to a network desire to attract a younger demographic. "I will be introducing a cadre of specially trained 15-year-old senior counsels to the President," jokes Sorkin. "It's going to be like The Mod Squad." But no kidding: New staffers will include Jorja Fox (formerly Dr. Maggie Doyle of ER) as a Secret Service agent assigned to protect the President's daughter (played by Elizabeth Moss) as she attends college and fends off white-racist threats for dating Charlie--you know, the black tattooed love-god aide.

And that's not all Sorkin has planned for West Wing's future. "Last week I decided I want to [do] a two-part episode, which would be a flashback showing how everyone came to be part of the campaign. It's a style of storytelling that really appeals to me. I think we're gonna do that a lot next year--have [those] two parallel things going. It's fraught with problems, not the least of which is we have one of the most expensive sets in television and we won't be able to use it at all in those episodes. But another problem is, how do you establish the vocabulary with the audience? How do I set up the rules with viewers that from time to time, this is going to happen and you shouldn't be upset by it?

"I just want to be able to write the moment when someone walks up to Martin Sheen and says, 'Sir, all three networks and CNN are calling and projecting you the winner.' Just to see what happens to his face when he realizes he's the President."

Martin Sheen, it seems, has already had such an epiphany. "He really believes he's the President," confides Brad Whitford, and one night, some evidence of this pops up. Harry, a van driver who shuttles cast and crew to the Bel Air set, asks a visitor, "Did Martin tell you about the tape?" What tape? Some kind of Watergate-type, hush-hush recording that'll expose the West Wing gang as a crew of closet Republicans? "Nah." Harry waves a cassette tape. "This is 'Hail to the Chief,'" he says. "Sometimes, when Sheen is in the mood, he sits up front with me, we pop in this tape and crank up the volume. Then he rolls down the window and waves at people on the street, like he's the President. People love it."

One thing's for sure: He does not do the Nixon resignation wave.

[SIDEBAR]

DIARY OF A FRAZZLED TV WRITER

It's not easy being aaron sorkin. not only is he responsible for 22 episodes of The West Wing this season; his distinctive writer's voice compels him to try to crank out 22 editions of ABC's Sports Night as well. Sometimes inspiration comes easily. For West Wing, he says "it can be something as simple as a news clipping about a small town in Alabama [that's] thinking about abolishing all laws other than the Ten Commandments. That's pure gold--I know I can get two [scenes] out of that."

Sometimes the going is tougher. Sorkin cites Sports Night's "Dana-Casey dating plan" (in which Felicity Huffman's TV producer Dana insists that Peter Krause's anchorman Casey date a few other women before they get serious about their own relationship) as one of his less successful flights of fancy. "Almost from the get-go I didn't like it," he says. "I feel I can do better in Sports Night's third season" (nudge-nudge, ABC).

Well, heck, they can't all be gems--especially when you're trying to bang out Emmy-worthy stuff for two very different shows. Just how hectic does Sorkin's life get? Here's a rundown of a recent week in which the inevitably harried writer admits, "I was in deep trouble."

SATURDAY AND SUNDAY "Ordinarily, I finish a [Sports Night] script by Sunday night, [the cast] reads it Monday morning, we rehearse Monday and Tuesday, and we shoot Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. I write West Wing while they shoot Sports Night, but this week I didn't get Wing done in time."

MONDAY "I had to cancel Monday and send everyone [in the Sports Night cast] home. I wrote."

TUESDAY "Tuesday morning we read a little more than half a script, which was all I had completed...."

WEDNESDAY "By Wednesday midday, as they were shooting the first half [of Sports Night], I had finished the rest of the script. That's missing the deadline by 48 hours."

THURSDAY AND FRIDAY "The West Wing script I'm on page 6 with right now was due a week ago today, and I'm not kidding when I say I don't know what's going on in page 7.... There's a horrible domino effect that takes place. By the way, that's why [an upcoming] Sports Night won't be written by me," says a miserable Sorkin. "I feel like I've sent my kids off to school for the first time and they're gonna like the teacher more than they like me."

EPILOGUE After this initial conversation, ABC decided to pull Sports Night from its schedule until Feb. 29. How does that make Sorkin feel about the show's chances for a third season? "We're worried," he says. "Right now, we're not as good at getting ratings points as a Drew Carey rerun. That's a bummer." On the bright side, however, he did manage to put a polish on that Sports Night script he was worried about, and--provided ABC doesn't play more games with the series--the episode will air in late March. --KT

Allison Janney: Life on “The West Wing”

By BONNIE CHURCHILL
CNN.com

HOLLYWOOD — Allison Janney, who plays the President's press secretary, C.J. Cregg, in the critically acclaimed NBC-TV series, "The West Wing," is a woman who is always noticed. "That's because I'm 6 feet tall," she'll tell you.

Janney, along with cast members Martin Sheen, Rob Lowe, Bradley Whitford, Moira Kelly, John Spencer and Richard Schiff, traveled to Washington, D.C., to film scenes for the hour-long White House drama. She reported: "I also went on a tour of the White House, visited the tourist's spots, including all the monuments, then went to New York to have lunch with former press secretary, Dede Myers."

Is she always this thorough in investigating a role? "I'm afraid so," she said. "It's my training."

Janney was referring to her mother, who was a budding actress in New York, attended the Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York and roomed with Eileen Brennan and Rue McClanahan. "She was a great one to research a role, and write a backstory for her character. She never believed in phoning it in," her proud daughter said.

Newman's influence

"Her acting career went on the back burner when she met my dad. She decided to get married and have a family. In those days, she didn't think you could do both. She may be right.

"I really didn't make a commitment to be an actress until I went to college," the actress continued. "It was my freshman year at Kenyon College, in Gambier, Ohio. Paul Newman had graduated from the school and built a wonderful theater on campus. When it opened, he came back to direct the first play in the new edifice. It was Michael Cristofer's Pulitzer Prize play, 'Shadow Box.'"

Both Newman and his Oscar-winning wife, Joanne Woodward, who accompanied him to the college, took an interest in the young student. "I suddenly realized how a director could make a role come to life," Janney said. "I couldn't wait to go to rehearsals. I'd literally run to the theater.

"Mrs. Newman was so supportive. She had attended the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York and suggested that I train there. I said, 'OK, I'll do that.' I didn't realize how many great performers had gone there. She helped me to get into the Playhouse without too much fuss. What was really wonderful was I was enrolled in the theater company at the time she was directing there."

Theirs was not a short-lived friendship. The Newmans come to see all of Janney's opening nights, including her first on Broadway. According to the actress, "I knew they were going to be there, for they sent flowers and a note. I also knew my mom and her girlfriend were in that first-night audience. The play was a revival of Noel Coward's 'Present Laughter.'

"I'll never forget it. During the last week of rehearsals, I'd awake each night from a nightmare. It wouldn't be the usual worry about forgetting my lines. I had much too much imagination for that. I'd fancy myself falling into the orchestra pit or collapsing on stage.

"When opening night finally came," she remembered, "minutes before I was to go on, I started sobbing. I'd fashioned my part after my grandmother, and it had so much meaning for me. (But) no matter how nervous or uncomfortable I felt, the minute I stepped on stage, I became calm. I told myself, 'OK, here I am, and I can do this.'

"I never looked at the faces in the audience, but I could feel their warmth and anticipation. It gave me strength."

Movie roles

Janney's second Broadway part was in Arthur Miller's "View From the Bridge," and again she came through with flying colors. She received a Tony nomination, the Outer Critics Circle award and the Drama Desk award for Best Supporting Actress of 1998.

All the attention to her theatrical work — both before and after these awards — led to several movie roles, including "Primary Colors," "Drop Dead Gorgeous" and "American Beauty." She described her role in the latter, playing the browbeaten wife of Chris Cooper, as "the most depressed woman on the face of the Earth, straightened hair, circles painted under her eyes and as much spirit as a mackerel." She told her agent, "Don't send any film from this movie to 'The West Wing' producers, for it's light years different from their image of a press secretary!"

She recalled: "I was in Hollywood doing a film when my agent sent me the script for 'The West Wing,' which he described as the best-written script he'd ever seen. I read it and immediately thought it was wonderful. The role of the press secretary got my attention, and I told my agent I wanted it.

"When I did get the role, and the network put it on the schedule, my life completely changed. My apartment, my boyfriend, my everything is in New York. It was just like opening night; but like the Newmans told me, 'Go for it!'"

She added, "I often think of my career as a race, like the tortoise and the hare. I'm the tortoise, I'm slow and steady. My motto is, 'Easy does it.' I've always known, deep inside, that I would find work. I tell myself, just be patient and have a good sense of humor."

Success hasn't spoiled her

How has success in the TV series, rated by many critics as the best of the season, changed her? "I've always been a shopaholic. Some day I'd like to buy a house and have a trip around the world. That's a dream. The reality is, I was going shopping for a dress for an awards ceremony. The wardrobe department said I could borrow one of the pretty gowns I wear on the show. So I put away my credit card and wore the dress."

Her one real extravagance? She has apartments on both coasts. "No matter how much I work in Hollywood," the actress said, "New York is my home, and Vermont is my place to unwind."

Allison Janney could have added, "and the stage is my first love." She's hoping to spend her summer hiatus from "The West Wing" doing Shakespeare at the New York Public Theater in Central Park. Last summer she starred in its production of "The Taming of the Shrew." In effect, she's doing a Hillary — going from the White House to New York — and loving it.