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March 17, 2003
Martin Sheen Defends Anti-War Activists
The Denver Post
Mar 17, 3:03 PM EST
LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Actor Martin Sheen defended the rights of Hollywood anti-war activists to express their views in an opinion piece published Monday in the Los Angeles Times.
"Whether celebrity or diplomat, cabdriver or student, all deserve a turn at the podium," Sheen wrote.
Sheen criticized those whom he said were trying to denigrate his and other Hollywood activists' views, "solely due to our celebrity status."
The actor, who plays the president on NBC's "The West Wing", said celebrity activists do carry added responsibility because their statements are likely to receive press coverage.
"As a result, we are often called to give voice to the voiceless and a presence to the marginalized," wrote Sheen, who has frequently expressed sympathy for the people of Iraq.
His article was published next to an opinion piece by Esra Naama, an Iraqi-American from San Diego, who wrote that her family fled Saddam Hussein's brutal regime in 1992.
"When Martin Sheen, Tim Robbins, Susan Sarandon and Barbra Streisand speak about the Iraqi people, they are not speaking about people like me," wrote Naama, a member of the nonprofit group Women for a Free Iraq.
Sheen recently said top executives at NBC had let him know they were uncomfortable with his vocal opposition to war with Iraq.
He said the network fears his position will hurt the show. NBC representatives, however, said network executives have expressed no such concerns
Posted by Jo at 03:13 PM
Complexities of the real world may be within viewers' grasp
By Joanne Ostrow
The Denver Post
Sunday, March 16, 2003 - The commander-in-chief is in a bunker, quoting Abraham Lincoln. He laments the fact that he is no longer in control of events, that events are controlling him.
As the tension mounts minute by agonizing minute, President David Palmer confides to a senior aide that, "This could be World War III."
In the fantasy world of "24," every line resonates with current headlines. Looking to television for a diverting bit of dramatic entertainment, we run smack into the questions that keep us up at night.
In another behind-the-scenes glimpse, another prime-time president is in the underground White House situation room, dealing with the aftermath of an attack abroad. American military men have been kidnapped. A rescue operation is deemed exceedingly risky. Upstairs, the families of the victims await word on whether their kin are being subjected to torture.
In the fictional universe of "The West Wing," wise and wonderful public servants work hard to do good for the country. The idealized Oval Office occupant is capable of profound speeches and insightful offhand remarks, steeped in history, theology and philosophy. President Josiah Bartlet's underlings respect him as unusually brilliant. They even tell their boss to tone down his display of smarts to appeal to a broader cross-section of voters.
Meanwhile, in volatile countries around the world, an American intelligence agent is tracking arms traders and missing plutonium cores, dealing in biochemical weapons and withholding information from evildoers who torture her. Sydney Bristow represents a network of invisible operatives we assume are doing very real covert work even as we channel-surf.
Viewers may be forgiven for wishing the U.S. government would just send Keifer Sutherland and Jennifer Garner to Iraq and get the job done.
While the Bush administration says the recently captured al Qaeda leader is not being tortured in the process of debriefing, those of us accustomed to torture scenes on "Alias" suspect there may be more to the story. The fictions of a spy action-adventure on TV begin to sound as plausible as the daily headlines.
Where do the Hollywood scenarios end and the actual events begin? In matters of international espionage, it's always been hard to tell. But on dramas such as these, the public shares imagined versions of secret government activity that makes sense given the war jitters we're feeling now.
Aaron Sorkin has said he writes "West Wing" in the storytelling tradition that stretches back thousands of years, weaving tales about "kings and their palaces." He lets us in on the internal battles of the heavy head that wears the crown. And he wants his leader to be heroic.
Sorkin also wants to depict the tremendous difficulty of making heroic decisions. While our real-life leaders present foreign policy as an unambiguous battle of good vs. evil, President Bartlet (Martin Sheen) struggles en route to answers. President Palmer (Dennis Haysbert) gnashes his teeth. They express fears and doubts.
We're way past the reflex of the Eisenhower era, when the public obediently believed that the government must have more information than they're telling and assumed it was always best to trust authority. In today's more convincing television scenarios, the authority is shown to be just as stymied as the rest of us. The TV presidents stare out the windows of Air Force One or the Oval Office with the knowledge that, sometimes, there is no right answer. They mull more shades of gray, entertain more doubts, than the real president relates in his television appearances.
The secret factions on "Alias" have shifting motives and alliances, confirming our hunch that international relations change as quickly as Syd's fashions. How many times can Arvin Sloane (Ron Rifkin), the nefarious head of SD-6, the CIA offshoot, surprise us? Nothing is simple. Today's dramatic protagonists struggle to gather information. They don't break it down into quick, black-and-white arguments. The geopolitics expressed in current TV dramas are surprisingly complicated. There are more nuances there, it seems, than in actual prime-time press conferences.
The audience can handle the complex ideas scripted for entertainment sake. It's just possible the TV-watching masses have the capacity to weigh the difficult issues in real life, too.
Posted by Jo at 03:08 PM
A Celebrity, but First a Citizen
Being famous does not bar an American from speaking out against an unjust war.
By Martin Sheen
The LA Times
I am not the president; instead, I hold an even higher office, that of citizen of the United States. For most of us in this country, citizenship is a birthright. However, this does not cloak the citizen with a life free of responsibility.
On the contrary, America comes with a price, often a heavy one, that we should each gladly pay. Though duties pedestrian and noble, from paying taxes to voting, are obvious tasks incumbent upon citizens, often something more is at stake -- as evidenced by the rows of white gravestones near such places as Normandy. It is the obligation of all citizens to participate in the affairs of state. Whether we support or criticize actions taken in our name, we need to lend voice to our findings. When done respectfully, sincerely and soberly, this can be a profound act of patriotism.
One need not be a scholar of international law to know that war at this time and in this place is unwelcome, unwise and simply wrong.
And although my opinion is not any more valuable or relevant merely because I am an actor, that fact does not render it unimportant. Some have suggested otherwise, trying to denigrate the validity of this opinion and those of my colleagues solely due to our celebrity status. This is insulting not only to us but to other people of conscience who love their country enough to risk its wrath by going against the grain of powerful government policy.
Activism by celebrities does carry added responsibilities. Statements, demonstrations and marches that include public figures undoubtedly receive a measure of press, providing access to a stage that others often cannot reach. As a result, we are often called to give voice to the voiceless and a presence to the marginalized.
Whether celebrity or diplomat, cabdriver or student, all deserve a turn at the podium. In speaking the truth as we know it, my friends and I have stood proxy for all those yet to join this great public debate. We urge their participation and welcome them to the fray, for in the end, this is not about us but is truly about the matter of life and death.
Posted by MorganG at 08:30 AM
March 16, 2003
Sorry Martin, President Bartlett would back this war
Sunder Katwala
The UK Observer
Martin Sheen is getting flak for heading America's anti-war movement. But his West Wing alter ego would support Bush over Iraq
Sunday March 16, 2003
The stakes in the great game of Fantasy President are rising fast. Not content with providing a weekly hour of escapism on The West Wing as liberal US President Jed Bartlett, Martin Sheen is now spearheading America's antiwar movement. Sheen's latest release is a video proclaiming 'Inspections work, war doesn't' leading to complaints from those who think that it is unpatriotic for even a fictional President to take such a stance when the United States is on the brink of war. And Bartlett isn't the only liberal president in town. Over on 24, President David Palmer's dilemmas seems to come straight from the network news. "Stop using my country as a source for every threat against the United States", growls the leader of a terror-backing Middle Eastern state.
Both shows offer a parallel political world where anything is possible. Indeed in 24 a liberal, black Democrat can divorce his wife at the height of the Presidential campaign and still stroll to victory. In the West Wing, a Harvard professorial know it all can lie to the American people about having MS and still rout his opponent - some right-wing Texan know-nothing in a cowboy hat, as it happens.
And so Democrat activists battered by President Bush's mid-term election triumph have found much solace in fantasy politics. Some have begun to ponder whether Sheen should be persuaded to run for the White House in 2004. Surely Sheen's decades of activism and ability to rally the Democrat base, combined with Bartlett's familiarity in the Oval Office role to millions across Middle America could make this a formidable "dream ticket".
Over on 24, President Palmer seems to be handling his own war on terror rather differently than Dubya. He would believe that the hand grenade at Gatwick - or, in his case, the nuclear bomb about to obliterate Los Angeles - is the greater danger. He spends much of the early episodes fending off pressure from shady advisors to plan military retaliation abroad. How different from Paul Wolfowitz and co, reported by journalist Bob Woodward to be gearing up for war on Iraq within days of September 11.
But liberals and anti-war protestors should not get too carried away with their television reveries. Dig a little deeper and both shows have a rather different message. Both President Palmer and President Bartlett would back war with Iraq. They would probably sell it rather better than President Bush has managed to achieve so far. They would sound rather more like Tony Blair. But back it they would.
The BBC website has run readers' complaints about 24's new "reality TV" terror plot. "Is this just propaganda for America's attack on Iraq?" asked one viewer. Would all Arab-Americans be portrayed as terrorists, asked others, forgetting that in 24 it is never the obvious suspects who turn out to be the guilty men. But the Palmer White House has a dark side. The series opened with torture in South Korea - which turned out to be supervised by the Americans. And Senator Palmer was no stranger to intelligence work before being elected - that is why he and Jack Bauer were targetted by Dennis Hopper's bizarre Serb terrorist family in series one. Jack Bauer delivered 24's central message in the opening episode, while hacksawing the head off a federal witness, "you want results but you never want to get your hands dirty".
President Bartlett hardly has clean hands either. His first major foreign policy decision is to respond to a terrorist attack which killed a Cabinet member. Bartlett's instinct is to bomb Iraq back into the stone age. Rather more of Bartlett's Middle Eastern problems come from the fictional rogue state of Qumar. Bartlett's solution is to assassinate the Qumari defence minister Abdul Shareef as he flies back from the White House. Being Bartlett, he agonizes over it - "won't this make us like all of the other nations" - before giving the order.
Both fantasy White Houses can fairly be described as being pretty unilateralist too. OK, Palmer hardly has time to convene the Security Council and get Hans Blix to downtown LA before the rogue nuke goes off. But The West Wing's worldview - like that of the United States generally - simply centres on the Oval Office. Attempts to cajole France, Angola and Cameroon to support America are not the stuff of which primetime drama is made. As White House staffers wrestle on screen with the moral dilemmas, none would think of suggesting that the decisions be contracted out to Jacques Chirac and President Putin.
Yet the real reason that President Bartlett would back war against Saddam because of his liberalism, not because of his aberrations from it. He is a liberal idealist in the Woodrow Wilson mould. His is the "pay any price, bear any burden" doctrine of JFK. He does not share the anti-war sentiment of Martin Sheen but rather the liberal evangelism of Tony Blair.
Bartlett tells his staff that "We're for freedom from tyranny everywhere. And because in our time you can build a bomb in your country and bring it to my country, what goes on in your country is very much my business". And he believes that agenda must be backed by military force. Bartlett's "tough liberalism" means harkening for the power of a Roman Emperor. When he suffers a terror attack he asks: "Where is the warning to the rest of the world that Americans shall walk this earth unharmed lest the clenched fist of the most mighty military force in the history of mankind comes crashing down on your house?"
So, when Republican hawks in Washington talk about democratising the Middle East, they make common cause with evangelical liberals like Bartlett and Blair. The political battle-lines have become blurred. If Martin Sheen were to seek to enlist President Bartlett to the antiwar ranks, he would find that George Bush has another unlikely ally.
Posted by Jo at 09:39 AM
March 14, 2003
Lowe's moving beyond politics with no regrets
'West Wing' recharged his career and now he's taking advantage of it
By ED BARK
The Dallas Morning News
03/14/2003
Sam Seaborn begone. Barely out of The West Wing loop, Rob Lowe quickly has a career-turning four weeks ahead of him.
In quick succession he'll:
Begin work Friday on Lyons Den, a pilot for a potential new legal series on NBC next fall.
Celebrate his 39th birthday on St. Patrick's Day.
Co-star with Gwyneth Paltrow and Mike Myers in A View From the Top, a big-screen comedy opening next Friday.
Head the cast of TNT cable's Framed, a cat-and-mouse crime movie premiering on April 13. In the same month he'll start filming TNT's Salem's Lot, a miniseries adapted from the Stephen King novel.
Mr. Lowe didn't grand-plan it this way. Framed, in fact, was made in 2001 before being temporarily shelved by a new batch of TNT executives who "put a moratorium on the previous regime's products," he said in a telephone interview Thursday.
"But it is sort of fun that just after my last West Wing episode you're going to get to see me with Gwyneth in a really sexy, frothy comedy, and then playing this working-class Long Island cop. ... I guess it would be nice if the net effect is that people see me in a new light. But I had a long, interesting career playing different people before The West Wing. And there's no reason to think I won't have a long, different career playing people after The West Wing."
His role as President Jeb Bartlet's deputy communications director put Mr. Lowe back in the majors after a string of post-Brat Pack bombs. But suddenly last summer, word came that the dissatisfied actor wanted out of The West Wing. He eventually signed on for the first 16 episodes this season. The last one aired on Feb. 26, with Sam Seaborn winning election to a California congressional seat. His White House replacement is already on board. Joshua Malina who worked for West Wing creator Aaron Sorkin on his late, often great Sports Night series is playing new deputy communications director Will Bailey.
"With so much stuff going on in my life right now, it makes more sense for me to talk about the future," Mr. Lowe said. "But if you're a West Wing fan, you know they weren't writing for Sam Seaborn anymore. What they had me doing in Seasons 3 and 4 didn't compare with what I did in Season 1 or 2. There were other things involved, but the bottom line is if I were creatively happy, I'd still be there."
Mr. Lowe said he expected a bigger sendoff in his fourth and final West Wing season. Instead, his character all but vanished before returning for two concluding episodes last month.
"It got a little confusing and quite simply a little confusing to me when the producers decided not to use me for the 16 episodes they did have me. But it was one of the greatest paid vacations I've ever had. I traveled the world and had a great time."
The pilot for Mr. Lowe's new NBC legal series is being produced by Brad Grey, whose company also has HBO's The Sopranos under its wing. But star James Gandolfini's ongoing contract dispute has led HBO to indefinitely postpone the scheduled March 24 startup of production on the show's fifth season. The two sides recently sued one another.
Mr. Lowe lionizes both Mr. Gandolfini and The Sopranos. But the two actors' disputes with management are worlds apart, he said.
"David Chase [the show's creator] continues to write great stuff for James Gandolfini. That was not my experience on The West Wing or I'd still be there. Other than that, I'm just as curious as you are as to how this will turn out, because The Sopranos is my favorite television show. I think James Gandolfini should win every best-actor award there is."
Posted by Jo at 02:23 PM
'The West Wing' Gets a 'Friend'
By Josef Adalian
Reuters
Fri Mar 14, 3:45 AM ET
HOLLYWOOD (Variety) - Chandler for president? Not exactly.
"Friends" star Matthew Perry (news) has signed to guest star in two episodes of NBC's White House drama "The West Wing (news - web sites)." He'll play Joe Quincy, a Republican lawyer looking for a gig as a White House associate counsel. The segments are set to air April 23 and 30.
Booking Perry, who stars as the wisecracking Chandler Bing on "Friends," wasn't tough. It turns out he's a major fan of the Aaron Sorkin drama.
Casting could give "The West Wing" a much-needed Nielsen boost. The show's numbers have been sagging this season opposite ABC reality show "The Bachelor."
Posted by Jo at 07:37 AM
March 07, 2003
Hollywood unions raise 'blacklist' specter
By Pat Nason
UPI Hollywood Reporter
United Press International
Published 3/3/2003 10:44 PM
LOS ANGELES, March 3 (UPI) -- Two leading Hollywood unions issued statements in Los Angeles Monday deploring suggestions that celebrities be punished for speaking up about war.
In separate statements, the Screen Actors Guild and the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees raised the specter of the Hollywood blacklist -- the name associated with the House Committee on Un-American Activities investigation of communism in the movie industry in the 1950s.
The statements come at a time when "The West Wing" star Martin Sheen has spoken publicly of receiving hate mail for his high-profile opposition to war in Iraq. However, the statements are not a direct response to Sheen's revelation -- the SAG statement has been in the works for some weeks.
"As our country again considers the possibility of war," said the actors' union Board of Directors, "it is the fundamental right of citizens to express their support or their fears and concerns. While passionate disagreement is to be expected in such a debate, a disturbing trend has arisen in the dialogue. Some have recently suggested that well-known individuals who express 'unacceptable' views should be punished by losing their right to work. This shocking development suggests that the lessons of history have, for some, fallen on deaf ears."
The statement said SAG supports the right of Americans to speak freely, whether in support of or against war.
"In the same vein -- and with a painfully clear appreciation of history -- we deplore the idea that those in the public eye should suffer professionally for having the courage to give voice to their views," said the union. "Even a hint of the blacklist must never again be tolerated in this nation."
The SAG Board said it hoped the nation would not experience a repeat of the experience of the 1950s, when it said Hollywood "prostrated itself before smear campaigns and witch hunters" rather than make a stand for constitutional principles.
"Most of America failed that test, averting its eyes as the House Committee on Un-American Activities persecuted citizens, destroyed careers, ruined lives and gave rise to the notorious 'blacklist,'" said the statement.
IATSE issued a statement supporting the SAG position and condemning "any hint of blacklisting that is being threatened as a result of any public statements that disagree with the current administration's dictates."
Sheen told the Los Angeles Times that NBC executives were afraid that his opposition to an invasion of Iraq would hurt the ratings for the Emmy-winning White House drama in which he plays the fictional U.S. President Josiah Bartlet. He said some critics have demanded that the network fire him from the show.
Sheen was a main spokesman for last week's "Virtual March on Washington," a campaign that had large numbers of Americans flood the White House and U.S. Senate offices with e-mail, telephone calls and faxes in opposition to a war.
A spokeswoman for NBC told United Press International that as far as she knew, no executives at the network are concerned that Sheen's political activities are hurting the show.
"We respect Martin's right to free speech," said spokeswoman Rebecca Marks. "We respect his opinions. I'm not personally aware of any concern about Martin's activities."
Marks pointed out that Sheen had been a political activist for years before joining "The West Wing" and it was never an issue regarding the popularity of the show. She also said that no one at the network is concerned that public reaction to Sheen's activism could affect "The West Wing's" popularity at some point in the future.
"There's been no concern expressed to me about fear over a potential fallout from Martin's position on the war," said Marks.
Copyright © 2001-2003 United Press International
Posted by Jo at 05:02 PM
March 06, 2003
New Star Wars as celebrities face backlash
Hollywood starts protest campaign
MURRAY WHYTE
ENTERTAINMENT REPORTER
Toronto Star
Mar. 5, 2003. 08:21 AM
He's just doing what the president of the United States should: Speaking openly, passionately and very publicly on his vision for the nation. And the message, conveyed both at boisterous public rallies and through Internet campaigns, is clear: No war on Iraq.
Wait, now. Not that president. George W. Bush is pretty keen on the whole war idea, as we well know.
The other president, Josiah "Jeb" Bartlett, of the extraordinarily popular television drama The West Wing also known, though perhaps not as well, as actor Martin Sheen.
Sheen, a lifelong activist, is just one of hundreds of the famous and not-so-famous who are using their star status as a stump from which to expound their own views on the pending war.
Conservatives, in return, have mounted their own campaign to vilify the celebrity anti-war effort as traitorous, anti-American or, at best, naοve.
In between them sits a public whose sentiments waver between two sides of the issue the right of the vastly famous to free speech, versus their dubious qualifications for the role of public opinion leader.
For a culture that descended long ago into celebrity obsession, the anti-war movement growing within the Hollywood elite is simply the crystallization of a fact.
"It's like Hollywood and Washington have become one," said John Orman, a professor of politics at Fairfield University in Connecticut.
Orman, with Brown University professor Darrell West, wrote the just-released book Celebrity Politics, which describes how the cult of celebrity has hijacked political discourse.
"The press pays so much attention to them, they end up sucking all the oxygen out of the political debate," he says of celebrity activists.
"They're systematically taking advantage of their position in society to monopolize public space."
Indeed, multi-million-dollar earners like George Clooney, Dustin Hoffman, Edward Norton, Matt Damon and Susan Sarandon have all made use of the celebrity pulpit.
Million-selling musical artists such as Barbra Streisand, Sheryl Crow and Michael Stipe, Mike Mills and Peter Buck of REM have done the same Crow most famously with the sequin-studded designer T-shirt she wore at the American Music Awards last month that read "War is not the answer."
Sean Penn made a peace pilgrimage to Baghdad last year.
They have not done so, however, without searing criticism from some quarters.
Aside from the predictable chidings of figures like Rush Limbaugh (he attacked Crow's "hypocrisy" for entertaining troops in Bosnia in 1990), it appears that star power may not be making much of a dent in Bush's approval ratings.
Fox News Channel released a poll last week that said two-thirds of respondents wanted celebrities to stay out of political issues.
A poll released by USA Today, CNN and Gallup found that 87 per cent of respondents said a celebrity lobby would not change their view on Iraq.
Conservative accusations of anti-Americanism may hit stars where it hurts most in the ratings, at the box office or at the record store.
"Boycott movie stars who are anti-war," was a highly popular message thread on an AOL chat board recently.
This week, Sheen speculated that his anti-war stance had created anxiety among executives at NBC, which airs The West Wing. The fear is that Sheen's criticism of the real president might sour some viewers.
Bill O'Reilly, of Fox News, made the vilification of George Clooney a personal mission on his show after Clooney compared Bush to cable Mafia character Tony Soprano.
Posted by Jo at 03:07 PM
March 05, 2003
Drama Writers Discuss Craft, Diss Reality Shows
by Daniel Fienberg
Zap2it, TV News
Tue, Mar 4, 2003 07:10 PM PDT
LOS ANGELES (Zap2it.com) - For months now, naysayers have warned that scripted television is on its last legs, but for an endangered species, the panelists at the "Creating Drama" session of the Museum of Television and Radio's William S. Paley Festival seem a feisty lot. Between them, Steven Bochco, Tom Fontana, Dick Wolf, Aaron Sorkin and J.J. Abrams have helped reinvent the television drama, picked up too many awards to count, and may stand as the last line of defense against the reality show encroachment.
Bochco opens the Monday (March 3) session with a clip the landmark drama "Hill Street Blues," followed up with a clip from the much maligned "Cop Rock." When the audience chuckles nervously, Bochco shoots back, "Yeah. Yeah. That's why I brought it. I don't think there's enough courage in our business."
At first, the five writer-producers are hesitant even to address the issue of the scourge of reality programming and how the unscripted glut has affected their ability to make the shows they want to make. That hesitation fades fast.
"Sometimes I think, 'Where is the religious right when you need them?'" asks Sorkin ("The West Wing," "Sports Night") of the increased degradation of reality shows. "We are now using humiliation of others as entertainment. It's embarrassing."
Bochco ("LA Law" , "Murder One"), who pointedly calls reality shows "those horrible things" bemoans that, "The trouble with democracy is that you get the shows you deserve."
Looking around at the panel, he quickly notes, "There's extraordinary work going on on television in spite of television."
The men on the panel suggest the myriad possibilities for breaking into television writing. Bochco describes his training ground as "puberty" and spent 15 years as a staff writer, rewriter and associate producer before becoming an "overnight sensation" creating "Hill Street Blues" in 1981. Fontana ("St. Elsewhere", "Homicide: Life on the Street," "Oz") was an unsuccessful playwright until the late Bruce Paltrow convinced him to come out to Hollywood. Sorkin also began as a playwright, became a successful screenwriter ("A Few Good Men," "Malice" ) and finally turned to TV writing when he couldn't shape what was to become the ABC series "Sports Night" into a feature script. Wolf ("Law & Order," "Dragnet") worked in advertising for 10 years, came to Hollywood and wrote unproduced screenplays for years before moving to television. Abrams ("Felicity,""Alias"), son of TV producer Gerald Abrams, had his first script ("Regarding Henry" ) produced at 25 and still alternates between film and movies.
Just as the panelists approach the medium from different backgrounds, they also approach the creative process in different ways.
Bochco remembers in his earlier days writing 15 or 20 episodes per season, but now he prefers to help with story development, while encouraging "younger, fresher brains to do the heavy lifting."
Abrams, at 36 the young turk of the panel, still subscribes to the process of delegation and compares the writing process to walking in the fog, sometimes going blindly, sometimes finding new paths, but just hoping you get to the right point by the end.
Wolf, who kids, "I'm the only one up here who doesn't write characters," attributes his love of procedural writing to early experiences with Arthur Conan Doyle. He also praises the show runners on all of the "Law & Order" permutations for keeping the shows going strong, stressing that he sees his role as steering the first 13 episodes of a series and then stepping back.
"The key is staying out of the way, as opposed to ..." he looks at the highly prolific Fontana to his right and Sorkin to his left, "I'm flanked by two maniacs."
"I want to give the staff their due praise, but some of them are here," says Sorkin. Even this kind of nod to the staff is rare for Sorkin, who is legendary for controlling every script. Still, he adds, "Writing is something you have to do by yourself with the door closed."
Bochco's response to Sorkin's moment of humility: "The problem is that if going home tonight Aaron gets hit by a bus, 'The West Wing' is f**ked."
In this cycle of gross-out extreme TV and inane relationship programming, heads nod in agreement when Sorkin explains the risks of producers making shows they wouldn't deign to watch themselves.
"The notion that the people who watch television aren't as smart as the people making television is a dangerous one," he warns.
Nobody argues, though, when Dick Wolf distills the essence of their profession.
"The first task of anyone, lest you get canceled, is to entertain people," Wolf admits, "Because they ain't there for message."
Posted by Jo at 06:58 AM
March 04, 2003
Union Warns Movie Execs Not To Pick On Antiwar Actors
The Associated Press
LOS ANGELES -- The specter of the Hollywood Blacklist era came to light again Monday when the Screen Actors Guild warned the entertainment industry that it better not punish people who speak out against war with Iraq.
"It is the fundamental right of citizens to express their support or their fears and concerns," the SAG statement read. "While passionate disagreement is to be expected in such a debate, a disturbing trend has arisen in the dialogue."
Part of the reason the blacklist issue has come to light is because of concerns of actor Martin Sheen, who recently said top executives at NBC fear his outspoken opposition to the war will hurt his show, "The West Wing."
An NBC spokeswoman responded that network executives have expressed no such concerns.
But the SAG statement said, "Some have recently suggested that well-known individuals who express 'unacceptable' views should be punished by losing their right to work. This shocking development suggests that the lessons of history have, for some, fallen on deaf ears."
In the 1950s, actors and writers who were allegedly pro-Communist were listed on an infamous Hollywood blacklist. The SAG statement said that during the Cold War, "most of America failed" the test to exercise its right to free speech, instead "averting its eyes as the House Committee on Un-American Activities persecuted citizens, destroyed careers, ruined lives and gave rise to the notorious 'blacklist."
Supporting "the right of all citizens, celebrated and unknown, to speak their minds freely on any side of any issue," the SAG statement added, "Even a hint of the blacklist must never again be tolerated in this nation."
Sheen, a participant in a "virtual march on Washington" antiwar campaign and founding member of the celebrity coalition United to Win Without War, is not the only one claiming backlash from stating his views.
In a lawsuit filed last month, actor Sean Penn accused producer Steven Bing of reneging on an agreement to pay him $10 million to star in a proposed movie after Penn spoke out against war with Iraq. In a countersuit, Bing said it was Penn who pulled out.
Meanwhile, more celebrities including rocker Ted Nugent and actor Fred Thompson are starting to come out to speak their views in favor of President George W. Bush.
Thompson, a former Republican senator from Tennessee and star of NBC's "Law and Order," recently taped a 30-second television ad that supports Bush's Iraqi policy that in part said, "Thank goodness we have a president with the courage to protect our country."
Posted by Jo at 02:17 PM
Thousands of Americans want to oust their president. The anti-war one, that is
By Duncan Campbell
The Guardian
Pressure is growing for the president to lose his job because of his uncompromising stance on the war. That's President Bartlet, as played by Martin Sheen in the hit television series, The West Wing.
Sheen has been one of the leading figures in the anti-war movement, addressing rallies and spearheading the "virtual match" on Washington last week in which legislators were deluged with a million emails, phone calls and faxes.
NBC is under pressure to sack him from its hit show or face a boycott or withdrawal of advertising. Sheen said in Los Angeles the channel's executives had indicated that his high profile could damage the show and had called on him to explain his views. He had also received thousands of hate emails, been accused of being a traitor and accosted in the street.
Many actors and singers are being lambasted by conservative talk show hosts for expressing their opposition to the war. A website, Citizens Against Celebrity Pundits, has been launched, for "American citizens [who] stand against wealthy Hollywood celebrities abusing their status to speak for us".
The site calls for donations for ads to counter the anti-war movement. "We believe that celebrities Martin Sheen, Mike Farrell, Tim Robbins, Rob Reiner, Barbra Streisand and others with them are using their celebrity to interfere with the defence of our country," says the site.
Last week, Fox News, the conservative cable news station, published a poll which concluded that two thirds of those interviewed wanted celebrities to remain silent on politics.
Organisers of the anti-war ads signed by actors and musicians say they are necessary because the mainstream American media has been reluctant to give coverage to the anti-war movement and the cable news channels are overwhelmingly pro-war.
Last week a full page ad in the New York Times quoted former Nato supreme commander Wesley Clark saying that invading Iraq would "supercharge recruiting for al-Qaida". It was signed by around 50 musicians, including Lou Reed, Sheryl Crow, Massive Attack, and REM.
Posted by MorganG at 08:22 AM
March 03, 2003
For Sheen, Being a Peacemaker Is Not a Role but a Calling
By Teresa Watanabe
The LA Times
Even though his convictions have led him to take controversial stands for years, actor Martin Sheen told a group of Roman Catholics on Saturday how uncomfortable he feels being one of the most visible figures in the movement against the potential war with Iraq.
Sheen said he has received an avalanche of hate mail and been accosted on the street, accused of being a traitor for such activities.
In an interview before his talk, he said that after he helped lead the "Virtual March on Washington," which flooded the White House last week with thousands of anti-war e-mails, NBC television network executives asked him to explain his views on national talk shows. He said they feared the furor would hurt "The West Wing," the popular show on which he plays a fictional U.S. president, who is also a Catholic.
"Spirituality is not safe," Sheen said. "It leads you down uncharted waters. If it didn't cost you anything, you'd have to question its value."
He said his actions through the years have flowed from his lifelong Catholic faith as a "follower of the nonviolent Jesus" who regularly attends Mass and always keeps a rosary in his pocket. But the price he has paid, he said, is a rap sheet of 64 arrests over 17 years, along with widespread enmity.
Sheen's appearance highlighted the Los Angeles Archdiocese's annual Religious Education Congress, which drew more than 30,000 participants. Although conference organizers feared the actor's appearance might provoke protests, he was instead mobbed for autographs -- even by those who disagreed with his sentiments on the war.
Keith Morlock, a 27-year-old Azusa businessman, said he is a conservative Republican who supports President Bush because of the threat he believes Iraqi President Saddam Hussein poses to the world. But he sees Sheen's views as fully consistent with Catholic principles, especially since Pope John Paul II has opposed an attack on Iraq.
Cardinal Roger M. Mahony embraced Sheen at the day's opening session and hailed him as a man of peace who has suffered "being imprisoned, being subjected to ridicule and all of the other things that happen to disciples of Christ."
Sheen said critics have demanded that NBC fire him from "The West Wing." The show's staff has been "100% supportive," but top network executives have "let it be known they're very uncomfortable with where I'm at" on the war, he said. NBC executives could not be reached for comment.
The furor "doesn't make me comfortable, but I must be doing something right," Sheen said in the interview. He added that he long ago decided it was more important to follow his convictions than to be on the "winning side."
In a workshop on spirituality and social justice with Father Michael Kennedy of Dolores Mission Church in Boyle Heights, the 62-year-old actor spoke about everything from Christian meditation to his life-changing encounter with Mother Teresa and his long history of activism.
He told the group of 800 Catholics that his first arrest was in New York with Daniel and Phillip Berrigan, two Jesuit priests who he called major influences. The occasion was a June 1986 protest against the proposed "Star Wars" missile defense program championed by then-President Reagan.
Sheen's more recent arrest in 2000 at Vandenberg Air Force Base was also for protesting the "Star Wars" project. He says he trespassed on federal property to kneel and recite the Lord's Prayer.
In between, Sheen has marched with labor leader Cesar Chavez and protested U.S. aid to El Salvador. He asked Mother Teresa to enlist the pope's help in trying to end the Persian Gulf War. He has fed the homeless and hungry at countless soup kitchens. He has talked with the imprisoned in annual Good Friday visits to Los Angeles Central Juvenile Hall along with Father Kennedy, a longtime Sheen friend and fellow activist.
Despite his fame and wealth, the actor, who was born Ramon Estevez, says he still connects with the poor and oppressed because many come from the same background he did: as children of poor immigrants.
His father was a factory laborer from Spain who rarely spoke outside the home to hide his broken English. But Sheen says he taught his son, above all, to speak the truth. The actor's mother emigrated from Ireland and died when Sheen was young, after 12 pregnancies and 10 children.
To help make ends meet, Sheen said, he began working at age 9 as a golf caddy in his hometown of Dayton, Ohio. His social conscience, he said, was formed by being "a servant to the rich." He organized fellow caddies to strike for better wages -- and was promptly fired. It was his first lesson in the cost of commitment.
"I learned that when you speak for someone with no voice, you've got to be prepared to pay a heavy price," Sheen said in the interview Saturday on his way to the conference in Anaheim. "You think you're going to be celebrated, but the opposite is true."
The actor said his commitment to peace and justice issues was triggered after a spiritual rebirth more than two decades ago following several events: near-death from a heart attack while filming "Apocalypse Now," a visit with India's poor while filming "Gandhi" and a trip to Paris in 1981. He subsequently met Mother Teresa, who told him that "it was easier to deal with poverty and death in India than the lack of spirituality in America" -- a comment that profoundly affected him, he said.
Today, Sheen faithfully attends Mass in Malibu and Santa Monica, receives the Eucharist and surrounds himself with rosaries -- he keeps four on the rearview mirror of his Toyota van, repeatedly giving them out to those in need. The political liberal has said he has financially supported the pregnant girlfriends of his sons to help convince them not to have abortions.
"He is a man of great faith who puts his faith in action," said Kennedy, co-presenter of the workshop with Sheen. "He's a model of what it is to be Catholic."
Some Catholics disagree. Kennedy, whose book, "The Jesus Meditations," features a CD narrated by Sheen, said one couple from the Midwest called him to complain that the actor was "un-American." Sheen rejects such charges, declaring that "I love my country so much I am willing to risk its wrath."
Until he heard Sheen speak Saturday, Rick Marten, a 51-year-old software engineer from Santa Maria, said he suspected that the actor was simply spouting off about the war to enhance his celebrity.
In a dramatic exchange during the workshop, Marten stood up and tearfully told Sheen that he had a 25-year-old son, David, who flies B-1 bombers for the U.S. Air Force.
"I did not raise him to be a warmonger," Marten told Sheen. "I pray that when our citizen soldiers come home, they come as heroes" and do not suffer the ostracism that greeted many Vietnam War veterans.
Sheen assured him that he felt "as you do," supported the speaker's son and prayed for the safe return of all of the troops. Later, the actor said that six of his own brothers had served in the U.S. military, including two in Vietnam.
Then, as now, Sheen said, he opposed the war but supported the armed forces.
Marten was moved.
"After I heard him, I realized he was speaking from the heart and has every right to do so," he said. "I know he's a man for prayer and peace."
Posted by MorganG at 08:04 PM
March 02, 2003
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 07:46 PM