The West Wing S02E24

[Note to international viewers: this contains minor spoilers about the season finale, "Two Cathedrals."]

The show opens with a clip of Aaron Sorkin saying, "What I love is the sound of dialogue, and so usually what I want to do is get two people arguing about something, anything...the time of day." We get a shot of Richard Schiff listening to Sorkin intently; with his chin down, his dark, intense eyes and the ripple of grey in his black hair, he has a more rabbinical mien than Maimonides. It's actually pretty hot, if you go for that sort of thing. He's wearing a suit that Toby would wear, so he seems more like Toby than Richard. Sorkin is wearing a kind of olive-green jacket with a white button-down shirt open at the collar, and a white t-shirt underneath. He's got a snappy, boyish haircut and isn't exactly hard on the eyes, either. He has the sort of smile people describe as "winning." Sorkin continues, saying that obviously the show's setting provides ample opportunities for him to do that. He describes it as "good food" for him. We get a clip of John Spencer saying, "But ultimately, what I got down to is, I'm playing Leo as if John were Chief of Staff, to Martin, as if Martin were President." Well, don't we all wish. He's wearing a dark pinstriped suit. They show brief clips of Leo and Jed interacting. Spencer continues, explaining that once he grasped the technical aspects of whatever Leo was supposed to be talking about, then his job was basically "personalizing it as a human being."

Cut to Brad Whitford, in a dark jacket and white button-down shirt, open at the collar. I'll pause here for the obligatory swooning break for all his drooling fans. Dum-de-dum...that should suffice. He says, "With such a technical thing to execute, you have to make sure your blood is flowing underneath it, as an actor...that you're not focused on execution but that you're focused on the moment." He says he finds it a "very challenging and interesting acting experience." Several adorable shots of Josh from the show. Cut to Martin Sheen, wearing a casual shirt with a three-button placket, done up to the top, in a colour that could be charcoal grey (and we'll pause while I swoon), saying, "It's not about going 'out there' [gestures to world at large], it's about going in here [points at his chest]." Shot of Allison Janney smiling hugely and fondly. She's wearing a brown jacket of some soft suede-y fabric over a plaid blouse in kind of a dusty pink over a white t-shirt. Her necklace is not at all a monument to bourgeois taste. She looks even more gorgeous than usual, perhaps because she seems completely relaxed, and isn't in performance mode. Sheen says that what's interesting about the show is that it's about the individuals who work there, and "their heart." Then we have a brief commercial break.

When the show returns, Rose tells us all the usual stuff about what season the show is in, that the finale is coming up the following night, and all the Emmys the show won last year. He then introduces Sorkin and all the actors, along with the names of their characters and the characters' positions. Rose asks Sorkin what he thinks "makes" this series, mentioning the suggestion of some people that TWW invests politics with a certain nobility. Sorkin thinks there's some of that -- some wish fulfillment -- but that it's not the idea that makes something successful, but the execution. He states that he thinks the cast is the best that has been on television in a long time (can't argue with that), and talks about how hard everyone associated with the show works to make it so good. He says that they "really swing for the fences." Being sports-impaired, I only have the vaguest idea what that means (just enough to figure it's a sports metaphor), but fortunately Rose asks Sorkin what he means by that. Sorkin points out that they've done forty-four episodes and that they never phone it in just because it's television -- that it's just the opposite: their sweep of the 2000 Emmys makes them feel like, "Now we have to be as good as everybody just said we were." They take it very seriously, and he likens each Wednesday night to a Broadway opening. Rose points out that writing twenty-two episodes a year is a lot of writing; Sorkin agrees that the pace is "ferocious," and adds that they are very wordy scripts. The cast members all smile knowingly, and Rose points to Martin Sheen, who's chuckling quietly about this.

Sorkin adds that the words aren't always in English: "They're sometimes in Latin, sometimes in French..." Janney, Whitford, Sheen, Spencer, and Schiff are all still laughing and trading knowing glances and little comments amongst themselves. Unfortunately, a lot of it is too quiet to catch, and there's no closed-captioning. Rose asks whether the fact that the show is all done with language makes it an actor's show. Spencer says that it's a great vehicle for actors, and mentions that sometimes they get to speak pages of dialogue, which doesn't happen much in film or television. In that way, it's like stage work. Schiff says, "Here's the thing about Aaron's writing, which is, it's not just incredibly beautifully metered and poetic and substantive, but it correlates with things so that you can connect with things that are emotional. So very often, even though you have this volume of things to say, the moments reside between the words, which only a great writer can pull off." Rose asks for elaboration on the idea of the moments residing between the words, and Schiff suggests that the moments the character might not want to reveal happen in between the language, and that the language almost covers them. We are shown a clip from "In Excelsis Deo"; it's the scene in which Toby discusses funeral arrangements with the homeless man whose brother died.

Whitford then makes his above-quoted comment from the opening about making sure the blood is flowing. Rose asks Sheen whether The West Wing is different from other things he's done. Sheen laughs jovially again; he's in an awfully good, giddy mood. Sheen says that it definitely is, and adds, "I never would have cast myself in this...never." He says he wanted to play John Spencer's part. (Dude, you already did...in The American President.) Sheen claims, "I'm better at it!" He then tells an anecdote about Jack Warner: "When they told Jack Warner that Ronald Reagan was going to run for President, he said, 'No, no, no: Ronald Reagan, Vice-President; James Cagney, President." He then mentions some interviews that he and [producer and director] Tommy Schlamme were doing a few months back, and tells Rose that they were being asked the usual questions about what makes the show work. Schlamme said that it was a family show -- that it was about family.

Sheen admits that he's always bugging Sorkin to put him in a parade, let him go out past the rope barriers, have him make a big speech, bring in the limousines...basically, he implies that he gravitates to the pomp and circumstance of the role. But he's told, "No, no, no, it's not about going 'out there,' it's about going in here." He talks about it being about the heart of the individuals in the White House, when Rose interrupts with another question. Sheen says, in a very pleasant, Presidential way, "I wasn't finished yet." He courteously allows Rose to continue, generating another round of laughter. Seeing these six here, and their incredible ease with and respect for each other -- not to mention the way they seem to truly enjoy each other's company -- it's very hard to believe the various rumours that fly around about strife over salary negotiations or whatever.

Rose asks Sorkin, "Give me some sense of what you think the value judgment is there in this White House." Sorkin replies, "I'm not sure what you mean...or maybe I am sure what you mean. Even if I'm not, I'll just make it up." He describes the initial perception of the show as being liberal, but that people quickly recognized that the characters were capable of arguing all sides of an issue, and that even if they disagreed with a particular character's position or behaviour, the characters were people who wanted to do right. Rose interrupts to ask whether that's Sorkin's take on the way the White House really is, and whether he feels it's not perceived as such, or whether that's simply the way he wishes it was. Sorkin says right away that he doesn't know how the White House is; Rose counters that he has the assistance of a number of consultants with first-hand experience. Sorkin says that he's nuts about those few people that he does know. He goes on to say, "I think that by and large in American culture, that the President and people who work in government that are leaders, have either been portrayed as Machiavellian or dolts." Rose agrees. Sorkin suggests that he writes it the way he does as a combination of the contacts he's had with political types and his own romantic vision of the way it might be. Rose asks the actors to tell him something they like or find interesting about their characters.