Aaron Sorkin Considering ‘West Wing’ Reboot After White House Visit: ‘I Just Got a Couple of Ideas For Episodes’ (EXCLUSIVE)
variety.comMichael Schneider Variety Editor at Large Aaron Sorkin was clearly moved on Friday during his visit to the White House to celebrate the 25th anniversary of “The West Wing” — so much so that it has him pondering a revival of the critically adored political drama. “If I had an idea, sure,” Sorkin told Variety afterward. “I didn’t think about it seriously, frankly, until today… We’ll see what happens when I wake up tomorrow.
But, if you’re asking me now, this is how I feel.” Sorkin, director/exec producer Thomas Schlamme and stars Martin Sheen, Richard Schiff, Dulé Hill, Janel Moloney, Emily Procter, Melissa Fitzgerald and Mary McCormack met with President Joe Biden in the map room, and then were given a personal tour of the building. (President Biden then left for meetings in Delaware.) Later, First Lady Jill Biden held a formal Rose Garden ceremony for the show, held right outside the real-life West Wing and Oval Office. “I just got a couple of ideas for episodes just walking around the White House,” Sorkin said. “Like, ‘why didn’t we ever do this?
Why did we ever do that?’” Sorkin said he has hesitated on a new edition of “The West Wing” in the past because he feared audiences would miss the original cast too much. “I suspect that a new president would have a hard time living up to people’s memories of Martin,” he said of Sheen and his character, President Jed Bartlet. “But maybe enough time has gone by and it’s a whole new generation.
A generation which, by the way, thanks to streaming, thinks we’re making the show today!” Sorkin said he doesn’t have a political agenda when it comes to considering a “West Wing” revival. “I just thought it was a great workplace against which to set,” he said. “There are all kinds of.
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