Bradley Whitford

Aaron is a very passionate, maniacal writer so the scripts really come from him, but he is very open to… y’know, we’ll plan ideas and we’ll certainly tussle about stuff when the script comes out. So, to a certain extent, he’s very interested. If there’s some problem or something that doesn’t ring true, he wants to know why and he wants to correct it or fight for it.

I am an old, old friend of Aaron Sorkin’s, who is the executive producer and writer. He had been talking about doing a political show for a long time and I had been interested in it for a long time. The moment I became available, he called me last year and asked me if I wanted to do it and then I just had to audition for the powers that be, and I got it.

I used to defend the West Wing show from the charge of sentimentality or wish-fulfilment, because I think if you do go into the Barack Obama White House you will find six or seven people around him who are true believers. We make these people climb this filthy rope and then we stand at the bottom and say, “Hey, your hands are dirty!” To show heroic, progressive, democratic politics at work was more than I ever expected.

I have to think that I think it’s always been a horse race between this administration’s temporary political acumen and their completely, utterly, totally bankrupt policies. And they’re coming home to roost. It was always a question of time. These guys aren’t conservative. These guys are radicals.

I did not always agree, personally, on the positions that Bartlet, character from the West Wing, took and I argued against them on many occasions. But Aaron Sorkin said, “Martin, that’s you, that’s not Barlet. It’s a very political decision he has to make.” I found from the very beginning that when I infused my own personal feelings about an issue it went against the grain of the character.