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Monday, April 10, 2006

Go, West young men (and women)

New York Times article on the final days of The West Wing. Interesting trivia: The writers had apparently intended to have the Democrat played by Jimmy Smits lose the election they've been running all year.

In the end, he won. The reason: They felt it would be too depressing following the death of the great John Spencer, whose character was Smits' running mate.

Some nice quotes from the actors who have been with the series right out of the gate:


Bradley Whitford, who portrays Josh Lyman, most recently
manager of the Santos campaign...

"This show is probably the first line in my obituary," Mr. Whitford said. "Everyone knows they got lucky with this one."


As the saying goes: The harder they worked, the luckier they got.


Mr. Sheen was offered an opportunity to see how his character's appeal would play in a real-life campaign. Not long ago,he said, he was approached by Democratic Party representatives from his native state, Ohio, to see if he would be interested in running for the United States Senate after he left the show. Though he would have had little trouble drafting a campaign platform — he is a fierce opponent of nuclear power and the war in Iraq, and a champion of human rights — he turned them down.

"I'm just not qualified," he said. "You're mistaking celebrity for credibility."

Martin Sheen: The flip side of Alec Baldwin and Richard "I'm speaking for the whole world" Gere, and one of the only exceptions to my general rule that actors shouldn't talk.
"In order to sometimes get a different perspective on what's going down in the world, to reach back to your humanity, you read novels," Mr. Sheen said. "We're like the reading of a novel."

And what will Mr. Sheen be doing now that the series is over?

At 65, he has decided to make good on a promise he made to himself long ago: to enroll, for the first time, in college. A graduate, though just barely, of Chaminade High School in Dayton, Ohio, nearly five decades ago, he will began taking classes next fall — in English literature, philosophy and, he hopes, oceanography — at National University of Ireland in Galway, in the country where his mother was born.

How can you not like such a man? I mean really, how cool is that?

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