The West Wing Cast: Then and Now

It's been more than 20 years now since The West Wing premiered on NBC. In addition to presenting the presidency in heroic hues, the show gave a spotlight -- and a lot of Aaron Sorkin-penned, walking-and-talking scenes -- to Rob Lowe, Bradley Whitford, Allison Janney, Elisabeth Moss, Martin Sheen, Jimmy Smits and more.

Here's a then-and-now look at the cast of the Emmy-winning, 1999-2006 White House drama and still-popular streaming show: what the actors looked like back in the days of fictional Bartlet administration; and, what they're up to today. Click ahead to get started.

Bradley Whitford won a Primetime Emmy for playing Josh Lyman, the rumpled staffer who ably serves two presidents, Josiah Bartlet (played by Martin Sheen) and Matt Santos (played by Jimmy Smits).

As of 2019, Bradley Whitford, who went on to win Emmys for Transparent and The Handmaid's Tale, and make his mark on the big screen in Get Out, was cleaning up nicely for the NBC choir comedy, Perfect Harmony (pictured).

Allison Janney won four Primetime Emmys as the all-business C.J. Gregg, originally the White House press secretary.

Allison Janney has come into her own as a star: She won an Oscar for I, Tonya, added to her big-screen resume with Juno and The Help, and claimed two more Primetime Emmys for her current CBS comedy, Mom.

The esteemed Martin Sheen earned six Primetime Emmy nominations as West Wing's moral and compassionate commander in chief, Josiah Barlet.

Since 2015, Martin Sheen, who played Uncle Ben in the Andrew Garfield Spider-Man movies, has co-starred in Netflix's Grace and Frankie (pictured), featuring Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin (a former West Wing player herself).

Rob Lowe, who'd appeared on a short-lived sitcom as a teenager (A New Kind of Family), became a full-fledged TV leading man via The West Wing, where he originally played Sam Seaborn, Toby Ziegler's unlucky-in-love chief lieutenant in the White House communications office.

Unhappy with his role, Rob Lowe departed The West Wing in Season 4 (though he returned for the series' final two episodes). He's gone on to star in several more series, including the Fox procedural, 9-1-1: Lone Star (pictured), which premiered in 2020.

Jimmy Smits joined the West Wing cast in Season 6 as Matt Santos, a Democratic congressman who would assume the presidency by the end of Season 7.

In 2019, Jimmy Smits, an L.A. Law vet, returned to the TV legal field for the NBC drama Bluff City Law.

Elisabeth Moss was a teenager when she first appeared as Zoey Bartlet, President Josiah Bartlet's fresh-faced youngest daughter.

Following an Emmy-nominated run on AMC's Mad Men, Elisabeth Moss moved onto the grim goings-on in -- and won her first Primetime Emmy for -- Hulu's dystopian drama, The Handmaid's Tale (pictured).

Richard Schiff won three Primetime Emmys for playing Toby Ziegler, the forthright White House communications director for the duration of West Wing's seven-season run.

Since 2017, Richard Schiff, who went on to appear in House of Cards and The Affair, has starred as the kindly Dr. Aaron Glassman on ABC's The Good Doctor (pictured).

Dulé Hill was 24 when he debuted in West Wing's second episode as Charlie Young, President Josiah Bartlet's personal assistant. He remained with the series to the end. Along the way, he earned one Primetime Emmy nomination.

After a 2006-2014 run on USA's Psych, Dulé Hill scored a recurring role in HBO's Ballers, and joined the smartly dressed cast of USA's Suits (pictured) in 2017.

As loyal White House staffer Donna Moss, Janel Moloney bantered with, and eventually became romantically linked with, Bradley Whitford's Josh Lyman.

In 2019, Janel Moloney was seen as the loyal, blurb-writing pal of Dominic West's caddish novelist in Showtime's The Affair.

Clark Gregg appeared as Mike Casper, a buttoned-down FBI Special Agent in multiple West Wing episodes, spanning Seasons 2-5.

Clark Gregg plays the buttoned-down S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent Phil Coulson (as well as Coulson's Life Model Decoy doppelgänger) in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, including on the ABC series, Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (pictured).

John Spencer won a Primetime Emmy for playing Leo McGarry, President Josiah Bartlet's chief of staff -- a gruff, but fair, man who'd battled alcoholism and heart trouble prior to joining the administration.

John Spencer died Dec. 16, 2005, amid West Wing's seventh and last season. He was 58. His last appearance came in the 2006 episode, "Running Mates" (pictured). Producers subsequently decided to lay Spencer's character to rest. Leo was said to have died, like Spencer, of a heart attack.

The Friends star moonlighted as Joe Quincy, a White House lawyer during Seasons 4-5. For his work in the handful of episodes, Matthew Perry picked up two Primetime Emmy nominations -- one more than he earned during his entire Friends run.

Matthew Perry is seen in 2017, the same year of his most recent on-screen work in the Reelz miniseries, The Kennedys: After Camelot.

An Aaron Sorkin favorite, Joshua Malina joined the West Wing cast in Season 4 as Will Bailey, a speechwriter brought in to fill the White House role vacated by the gone-to-run-for-Congress Sam Seaborn (played by Rob Lowe).

The always-busy Joshua Malina made several appearances, from Seasons 3-12, as the president of California Institute of Technology in the long-running CBS comedy, The Big Bang Theory.

Mary McCormack was familiar to TV audiences as a star of the crime drama Murder One when she debuted on The West Wing in Season 5. She played Kate Harper, a hard-driving Navy vet-turned-national-security-adviser.

Mary McCormack played the take-no-prisoners 1970s mom on the 2018-2019 ABC sitcom, The Kids Are Alright.

Stockard Channing, the acclaimed actress of Grease, Six Degrees of Separation and more, won a Primetime Emmy for her work as Abbey Bartlet, a Harvard-trained doctor and the nation's first lady.

A recurring actor on The Good Wife and an Emmy nominee for the short-lived sitcom Out of Practice, Stockard Channing stopped by Bravo's Watch What Happens: Live in 2018 (pictured).

Moira Kelly (Cutting Edge) played Mandy Hampton, an in-demand political consultant recruited by the White House in Season 1.

After her character was written off the West Wing before Season 2, Moira Kelly went on to star in the primetime soap One Tree Hill. She popped up in the Season 3 premiere of Fox's The Resident (pictured).

Kathryn Joosten played President Bartlet's indispensable executive secretary, Dolores Landingham. Joosten's character was killed by a drunk driver in Season 2.

Kathryn Joosten won two Primetime Emmys for Desperate Housewives, the series she worked on as she fell ill with lung cancer. Her illness was written into that show, and her character, Karen McCluskey, succumbed to it in the series finale. Roughly one month later, on June 2, 2012, Joosten lost her battle to cancer. She was 72.

Mark Harmon earned a Primetime Emmy nomination for a Season 3 stint as Simon Donovan, a doomed Secret Service agent assigned to C.J. Cregg (played by Allison Janney).

Since 2003, Mark Harmon has flashed a badge as Naval Criminal Investigative Service Agent Leroy Gibbs on CBS' NCIS.

The M*A*S*H* alum joined the West Wing cast in the show's final two seasons as Arnold Vinick, a Republican U.S. Senator who runs for president. While Alan Alda's character loses his bid, the actor won a Primetime Emmy for the role.

Alan Alda, who went public with his Parkinson's disease diagnosis in 2018, is seen promoting his new movie, Marriage Story, in 2019.

Timothy Busfield, an Emmy-winner for thirtysomething, played Danny Concannon, a dogged Washington Post reporter, in dozens of episodes from Season 1-7.

From 2018-2019, Timothy Busfield was seen as the president's sympathetic therapist, Dr. Adam Louden, on Designated Survivor.