West Wing: Life After Sorkin
Last spring, The West Wing's quirky creator, Aaron Sorkin, ended his four-year run as the drama's head writer. Fellow exec producer/director Tommy Schlamme also took a powder. That left exec producer John Wells in charge, and the cast worried about the show's future. Flash-forward now to 2004. How's life after Aaron? Last week, the residents of his fictional White House mulled it over at the Television Critics Association press tour in Hollywood.
"I can only speak for myself," said Bradley Whitford, who plays Josh Lyman, the deputy chief of staff. "It was a hugely emotional and difficult thing to see Aaron and Tommy go away. It was bewildering and disorienting.
"I always say, being on a one-hour drama is like being in an acting cult," he added, laughing. "It's like David Koresh left!"
After Sorkin's resignation, what did the cast think? "All of us really wondered, 'Does the idea [of the show] hold?'" Whitford admits. "I think I do speak for the cast that there was a tremendous sense of relief, very early on this [season], that the idea does hold, the characters hold, and the quality of the scripts was going to be high, and that these were going to continue to be interesting stories to act out.
"That's a testament to the talent of the writing staff, and it's a testament to Tommy and Aaron's vision, which I think was very strong and audacious."
"The big surprise is that Aaron stayed as long as he did," says John Spencer, who plays chief of staff Leo McGarry. "I had a real member of the West Wing say to me, 'You guys are getting very overblown about Rob [Lowe] and Aaron leaving. You know, in the real West Wing, we lose people every four or five months.' It kind of put things in perspective."
