- The people who say that they're watching "The West
Wing," well, I think what they're loving
is they love spending time with these characters.
But the other thing that they're loving
is simply the sight and sound of competence.
One of the things that Aaron is particularly skilled
at doing is develop pairings or, sort of, set
[INAUDIBLE] between characters.
There was something special about that chemistry, Aaron,
that you couldn't have predicted.
Aaron, talk a little bit about how you and Tommy, when you
looked at these things, that was not on the page
when you brought these people together.
You can't know that in advance.
What we knew was that we had an extraordinary cast,
that each actor was great.
You're cooking a meal, and we knew
that we had just the very best ingredients
set out on the kitchen counter.
The chemistry, the electricity, it was really something.
And, you know, that--
that whole first season was kind of us
learning how to do the show.
It was almost like we were in previews for a year.
And though I'll say that that during that preview period,
we did some pretty good shows.
Can-- I just--
I just want to say, I think it's one
of the most underrated things--
underacknowledged things about Aaron's writing skill
is he needs, in the best sense of the word, to exploit you.
And so he looks at a creature like Allison
and goes, oh, I can do the comedy,
I can do the heartbreaking stuff.
He's in love with the--
he's in love with the actors and really
intuitively connects with them.
Exploiting is a great word because he doesn't only
expound upon what's good or what's eloquent about them,
but on what's really dark and what hurts about them.
And that's really the difference between a good writer
and a great writer.
And he also, the other thing that's really important
that used to drive me mad, but it was,
he felt like every instrument always
needed a solo in every episode.
It was like, I don't know if he did it by-- when he finished,
he would write, you know, he would count the number of lines
everybody had or what he did.
But it was really important to him that everybody got to play.
And that, to me, is an unbelievably unique talent.
There's another- there's another way to look at that,
which is that everyone has a voice.
And I think, as an audience, people
want to, OK, what is Brad thinking about this right now?
We want to hear that.
What's Janel's comment going to be?
What's Allison going to come in and ride through this stuff?
It's part of-- it's part of the elements of great story
that all the voices needed to be heard at some point or another.
I serve at the pleasure of the president of the United States.
Yeah?
I serve at the pleasure of the president.
I serve at the pleasure of President Bartlet.
Toby?
I serve at the pleasure of the president.
It's interesting, I think, also because you've had
the-- a bit of the luxury, although
you worked incredible hours.
The luxury of time to let the characters kind of
develop into pretty complicated people.
There's no single character in "The West Wing"
that's totally lovable.
Everybody has some work.
I think Toby's totally lovable, I'm sorry.
I don't think there's any--
Well, I agree.
--down quality whatsoever.
He's a perfectly sweet man.
Especially his humility. [LAUGHTER]
Yes.
Exactly.
You're kind of the big gray cloud
that he may not want to see some time, or that reality check.
That was purposeful, right, Aaron?
Absolutely.
It was a conscience sometimes, especially
if you're a president who has to weigh all kinds of things.
Can be very annoying to deal with.
And-- annoying is too facile a word.
It's very tough to deal with because Bartlet
knows Toby's right, OK?
But Bartlet also knows it--
the world is bigger and harder than you're making it out
to be.
And Toby saying, yeah, when it comes to right or wrong.
Here's what happened.
When we were casting, in the pilot script, which
was all we had, there wasn't enough for CJ and Toby
for us to really put the actors through their paces.
So Tommy said, listen, why don't you write a scene or two
with Toby and CJ?
You know, don't worry about what happened before
it, what happened after it.
Just a scene that they can audition with.
So I did, I think it was--
I think it was two scenes.
But they were pretty good scenes.
And they raised some questions so that that audition scene
that I wrote turned into what we see between the two of them
in "The Crackpots and These Women."
And then from then on, Toby became this kind of, you know,
Marlee's ghost to Bartlet.
I hope you all have your Toby in your various sheltering
in places.
Well, I have Richard.
Allison, I want to get--
[LAUGHS]