EVERYONE involved in the original ‘The West Wing’ is up for bringing back the political drama that dominated the airwaves in its Award-winning run back in the early ‘00s - and the feeling is, it’s much needed in the current political clime.
That’s what Allison Janney aka CJ Cregg revealed to Variety recently, when pressed on whether the series could come back in some form.
“Everyone wants to, but really, how could we do that?” she asked. “We’re all too old!”
The fictional West Wing was filled with impossibly smart, hard-working but glamorous, witty, self-deprecating folk (Rob Lowe played the deputy communications adviser, for example) and Allison would love to see a reboot along the same lines.
“They could do it with a whole new cast, and [writer] Aaron [Sorkin] should. I know everyone fell in love with our characters, and I love that, but it seems like West Wing should be filled with young, idealistic, visionary people. Maybe, I don’t know, they could give us some other jobs in the White House.”
Allison is among the many who mourn for the days when Jed Bartlett, played by Martin Sheen, was the occupant of the Oval Office.
“But gosh, it would be just a great time for West Wing now, for whoever is disillusioned by what’s going on today,” she said.
“Those are the people you want working in Washington: People whose hearts are in the right place, people who reach across the aisle, people who want to do the right thing. It was a great show. I wish we could do it. Believe me, I wish we could.”
Fellow ‘West Wing’ star Richard Schiff (Toby, to the Wing-nuts) recently caused a social media flutter when he single-handedly got ‘#PresidentBawBag’ trending, following Donald Trump’s selective US visa ban.
Martin Sheen became many people’s first choice for president as a result of playing the brainy, compassionate, irascible but witty president on the show, however, when asked by HuffPostUK what he would do if he were given the office, he seemed stunned by the prospect.
“If I was the president I would demand a recount,” he chuckled. “There must be some mistake here. I could never be president, because I’m a pacifist, and to be president you have to be willing to kill, unfortunately.”
When pressed, this is what he had to say...
“I would just, as president, attend the first demonstration against polluting the environment, the next demonstration against gun violence and against the gun lobby and the next demonstration against abuse of children and the sex trade,” he offered.
“And I would strengthen the unions, I would do all the things that have crushed us for the better part of the 20th century and into the 21st century. The poor have been crushed. I would just try to stand with them and say, the majority of the people of the world, the 1% have prospered off your labour and your suffering and I would stand with you. I’m with the 99%. I would call myself the 99% administration.
“I wouldn’t be able to make many changes, but I’d have a hell of a good time trying.”
Can you see why we need him?
Read the full Allison Janney interview in Variety