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April 19, 2006
Saying Good-Bye to the West Wing
By Marilyn Beck and Stacy Jenel Smith
National Ledger
Shooting the final episode of "The West Wing" was "heartbreaking," admits Bradley Whitford, who has spent the last seven years playing Josh Lyman on the revered NBC series, which will make its final bow May 14.
"Working on this show, it's very familial -- a crushing level of intimacy, of everyone knowing what everyone else has gone through. People have become parents, toddlers have become teenagers. And then it's the end. I've never experienced anything comparable."
He reports that the final shot, the final day had Martin Sheen, as President Bartlet, "walking through the West Wing and people applauding, feeling sad. Martin is a hugely beloved guy. We never had to act what our characters felt about Bartlet because we felt that way about Martin."
Still, adds Whitford, the death of costar John Spencer last year "gave everyone more perspective than we would normally have had. It makes the end of a TV show feel pretty puny."
Whitford says he was hoping he'd have time to "shake my Etch-a-Sketch" before jumping back into the series game, but when "West Wing" creator Aaron Sorkin had a role for him in his "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip" pilot, it was too good to pass up. The probable NBC fall series goes into the backstage world of a sketch comedy show, with Whitford as a director with a drug-ridden past. Also in the cast are Matthew Perry, Amanda Peet, D.L. Hughley, Steven Weber and Tim Busfield.
Besides -- Whitford, who is wed to Jane Kaczmarek of "Malcolm in the Middle" fame, with whom he has three children, adds, "Our kids are in school 15 minutes away from the studio. I'm one of the very few actors who knows he isn't going to leave town."
Posted by Jo at April 19, 2006 08:06 AM