Stories I Only Tell My Friends

by Rob Lowe

  Believe it or not, it never occurred to me that The West Wing might be about the White House. My agent gave me no backstory on the script, only that it was good. I halfway feared The West Wing might be a spin-off of the then popular Pensacola: Wings of Gold. I’m telling you, I was completely unprepared for what I was about to read. I didn’t even know which character I should be considering.

  Through no fault of my own, I’ve had a career where I play guys you meet on page one. And on the first page of The West Wing, here comes a character named Sam Seaborn. Good name. Nice alliteration and romantic-sounding. He’s standing at a bar slinging rapid-fire political-insider talk. From my years on the inside of campaigns I recognize at once the authenticity of his voice and the world that surrounds him. Oh, now Sam’s flirting with a girl in a charming, self-deprecating way. I get the idea that Sam is more comfortable with public policy than private interaction with the fairer sex. Nice dynamic. I’m liking this Mr. Seaborn more and more. And now at the end of the teaser (the intro before the credits), Mr. Sorkin closes the deal. Sam’s date asks who his boss, POTUS, is.

  “President of the United States,” he replies, dashing off to solve a White House crisis. My chest thumps, I feel my skin tingle, and I know that, God help me, I’m in love.

  I’ve read hundreds of scripts. I’ve read a number that I would have killed to have been a part of, but I’ve read only one or two over the course of twenty-plus years that made me absolutely certain of this: I know this character at first blush and on the deepest of levels. He feels written for me. Everything I’ve done as an actor and as a person has prepared me for this part. The miles on the road campaigning, serving a candidate pursuing the calling of that elusive, magical oval office. My interest in policy, in public change, in service. My deep love of the majesty of our flawed democracy. Like Sam, I feel these things in my bones. When Sam Seaborn speaks, it’s as if it’s me talking, but elevated by the massive intellect and wit of Aaron Sorkin. Sam Seaborn, I realize, is my idealized self.

  By the time I get to Sam’s showstopping speech to the grade-school teacher, I can’t wait to slip into this material.

  (As Sam tries to impress his boss’s daughter’s class, he appeals to the teacher after a less-than-stellar White House tour.)

  SAM

  Ms. O’Brien … please believe me when I tell you that I am a nice guy having a bad day. I just found out that the Times is publishing a poll that says that a considerable portion of Americans feel that the White House has lost energy and focus: a perception that’s not likely to be altered by the video footage of the president riding his bicycle into a tree. As we speak, the Coast Guard are fishing Cubans out of the Atlantic Ocean while the governor of Florida wants to blockade the Port of Miami. A good friend of mine’s about to get fired for going on television and making sense and it turns out that I accidentally slept with a prostitute last night. Now would you please, in the name of compassion, tell me which one of those kids is my boss’s daughter?

  MALORY

  That would be me.

  SAM

  You.

  MALORY

  Yes.

  SAM

  Leo’s daughter’s fourth-grade class.

  MALORY

  Yes.

  SAM

  Well, this is bad on so many levels.

  Sorkin’s writing is music and I can hear its melody clearly.

  I call my agents. “What do we need to do to get this part?”

  The news isn’t good.

  “They don’t want a star. They don’t want any ‘names’ in the cast,” my agent informs me. “But they are intrigued that you are intrigued. If you are willing to come read for them, they will give you a meeting.”

  I have auditioned throughout my career, but fairly infrequently because usually roles are offered to those with a body of work. And truthfully, that’s the way it should be. It’s an acknowledgment of an actor’s length of service. If you want to know if I’m funny enough, you can watch Austin Powers, Tommy Boy, Wayne’s World, or SNL. Interested in my dramatic chops? Look at Bad Influence, Square Dance, The Stand, or The Hotel New Hampshire. Can I pull off romantic banter? There’s About Last Night and St. Elmo’s Fire. If you don’t like what you see, no problem, and if you do, then let’s make a movie! Readings should be for newcomers who’ve never done the kind of work you’re asking them to do. But I actually love the challenge and if I want this role, I’ve got to play it their way. It’s their show after all; they can cast it any way they want.

  Sheryl accompanies me for the long drive from Santa Barbara. If I do get this part, this drive (about eighty-eight miles one way) and the upheaval it would cause is just one of a few challenges we would face as a family. One-hour television drama is universally accepted to have the most grueling schedule in all of show business. And that’s if everything runs like a Swiss watch. If the show becomes successful, I potentially would be looking at four hours in the car and at least twelve hours a day on set, five days a week, twenty-two weeks a year. But first, I’ve got to do this reading.

  “Good luck, baby,” says Sheryl, giving me a kiss. “Knock ’em dead.”

  It has been arranged that I will only have to read once. I won’t have to run the ugly gauntlet of casting readings, show-runner readings, studio readings, and network readings. When I walk into the office on the Warner Bros. Studios lot, it’s jam-packed with representatives of all the various gatekeepers. But I know there are only two who matter. John Wells is the man responsible for one of the finest, most successful and well-run franchises in TV history, ER. He is a writer himself and a tough negotiator of some renown. He will be the man whose prestige and power at the network will shepherd this brilliant but commercially risky project to fruition.

  “Hey, Rob, thanks for comin’ in,” says John. For all his juice and power, he is down-to-earth and affable.

  “Do you know Aaron Sorkin?” he asks.

  Now the real gatekeeper. In TV the writer is God. Even lazy, cliché-favoring scribes are deities if they are running a television show. And now I’m shaking hands with the boyish, preppy-looking Zeus of The West Wing.

  “Ah, hey there, Rob. Great to see ya,” says Sorkin, in his unique cadence, which I will eventually and shamelessly emulate as Sam Seaborn whenever I can’t hear “the music.” The other twelve or so people huddle in the background as Sorkin sits in a chair in front of them and next to me. It’s then I realize that Aaron will be reading with me. This is highly unusual; in fact, I’ve never encountered it before. He doesn’t want to hear his melody played back to him from the audience, he wants to be onstage and play it with you. Fantastic! I’ll be reading with someone who cares as much as I do.

  The scene is Sam’s big speech about his “bad day.” I know this meeting is not much more than a curiosity-fulfillment exercise for everyone in the room. I know they want New Yorky, theater, character actors who have never “popped.” And I am a lot of things and can be a lot of things, but I can never be those things. But I can be this character.

  I intuitively know that there is no margin for error with the words. I either have to know them cold or read them off the script in order to make no mistakes. (This will prove to be an understatement when, during production, we will have a supervisor whose sole job is to make sure we say exactly what is written. “Rob, sorry, you said ‘I’m.’ It’s supposed to be ‘I am.’”) I hold the scene in my hand as I begin. It’s long, and one slip in front of Sorkin and it will be over for sure.

  Sorkin and I play the scene and it sings. But the big speech is coming up fast now and like with another audition so many years ago, in front of Francis Ford Coppola, I know I’ve gotta stick it. I toss the script on the ground with some force and turn on Sorkin, giving him both barrels of his precise, rhythmic ammunition. And I’m reminded: This is what I live for. Beautiful fastballs right down the middle of the plate, just where I like them. Sure, they’re coming in hot and one after another, and probably not everyone can hit ’em
right, but I’ve put in the work and fouled off so many bad pitches that now, seeing these great ones, I’m parking them in the top level of the stadium.

  “Well, that’s bad on so many levels,” I finish, and the room laughs, loud and as one. Sorkin is beaming. He looks across the room to John Wells: “See! I told you it was funny!”

  Halfway back to Santa Barbara, my agent calls. “Congratulations. You got the part!”

  My elation is short-lived. The offer is so low that there is simply no way I can take myself off the market for the length of the five-year contract. In comparison to my previous television deals, the offer to do The West Wing would’ve been a pay cut of 65 percent. But I understand. They were honest and up front from the beginning. They did not want anyone famous. And they certainly didn’t want to pay for it.

  “I don’t care about my previous deals. I’ll cut my price by half. I have to play this role,” I tell my agents and my manager, Bernie Brillstein.

  “Sometimes you have to sacrifice for a great part,” I remind them.

  “I hear ya, kid,” says Bernie, “and I agree. But I won’t let you work for this.” Bernie and my agents try to negotiate a compromise, to no avail. I’m profoundly disappointed; it looks like someone else will be playing Sam Seaborn.

  * * *

  My mother has divorced Steve (husband number three) and moved to Santa Barbara to be near her grandsons, whom she adores. She is teaching them to read and play the piano, and is otherwise spoiling them with a support and love that makes me love her all the more. And for some reason, with Steve out of her life, she is no longer incapacitated by her many mysterious illnesses. And so, with her late-in-life rebirth, I get the mother I have always wanted. My father, now divorced again as well, has a bittersweet reunion with his first love and mother to his oldest sons at Christmas as they both bunk at our house for the holidays. Among the many magnificent gifts Matthew and Johnowen have given me, this is the most unexpected. I have no memory of the early Christmases when my mother and father were together. And in the mysterious way life has of coming full circle, I am moved beyond measure to see them together again at last, enjoying their grandsons.

  The holidays pass and I know I won’t be getting the one thing I’d like to start the New Year. Now the role of Sam Seaborn is being read by a wide range of actors. I hear their names through the Hollywood grapevine and some are pretty good indeed. But, I also keep hearing that Sorkin’s mind was made up weeks ago, after our meeting. I send back-channel messages to him as he does to me: “Can’t we find a way to do this?”

  Bernie and I talk every day about anything and everything. Having run a studio, hired and fired many of the town’s top executives, and generally just being in play for so many years, he always knows the inside story.

  “NBC wants a star to help sell the show,” he says to me one morning. “We may be in business.”

  And sure enough, within days the studio has a new offer.

  “Kid, it’s still a fifty percent pay cut. I can get you more than double on another show if you want it,” Bernie informs me. “If you want this show, it’s a sacrifice.”

  I have literally been dreaming about this project at night. In all my career, that has never happened. For a kid who followed his dreams to a town that’s built on the promise of them, I decided to listen to mine.

  “Make the deal. I have to do this show.”

  I am fitted for my wardrobe by the lovely Lyn Paolo only one day before shooting. I sign my contract on the floor of her changing room. I’m over the moon. Bernie is less so.

  “Political shows never work. It’s a great script but I just don’t know.”

  “It’ll be great,” I promise.

  “Well, look at it this way. If it works, then they’ll have to make you whole.”

  After choosing Sam’s battery of navy and black suits, crisp white shirts, and reading glasses, I head over to stage 18 and take a peek at the newly completed set. It’s awe-inspiring. Giant, luxurious, and detailed down to the stationery inside the desk drawers; my old pal from The Hotel New Hampshire, Jon Hutman, has created a set for the ages.

  Although shooting will begin the next morning on location at the Biltmore Hotel in downtown L.A., I still haven’t met the other actors. I also know that one important role has yet to be cast, that of President Josiah Bartlet.

  “We’re not gonna see much of the president in the life of the series,” Aaron tells me. “The stories are going to be about his staff.” And indeed, Bartlet doesn’t make an appearance until the very end of the pilot, which is usually the dramatic template for any future storytelling.

  “He’ll be like the neighbor from Home Improvement,” says one of the producers, referring to the character on that hit show who is constantly talked about but rarely seen. I had heard they were hoping to cast Sidney Poitier as Bartlet.

  “Yeah, he’d be amazing,” Sorkin tells me when I bring it up. “Also thinking about Martin Sheen. He actually called me, he’s so excited!” says Aaron, clearly enamored.

  Martin as Bartlet! Our families have been intertwined for so many years that I can’t even express to Aaron the levels of history and subtext this would bring to the Sam-Bartlet relationship. So I just say this: “Martin Fucking Sheen is the greatest.”

  * * *

  The West Wing pilot may be the best one ever made. From the first frame to the last it is letter perfect, a freakish combination of the right actors playing the right parts, and a script with a witty, intelligent rhythm that had never been seen on television. The Sopranos, another Hall of Fame show that would become our good-natured blood rival, took a few episodes to find its sea legs. Not The West Wing. Right out of the gate, it blew your doors off.

  When air-time advertising buyers are shown a ten-minute clip at the important network “up-fronts,” they greet it with a standing ovation. Sitting backstage, the cast look at one another. “What is going on here?!”

  Scott Sassa, the president of NBC, comes over and congratulates us. “I’ve been coming to these up-fronts for a lot of years. I’ve never seen this.”

  Sassa, who always believed in the script, has seen enough to give the show a prime spot on the fall schedule. “You’ll be on Wednesday nights at nine p.m., right before Law and Order.” Sorkin is elated. He takes me aside: “I thought you should know that you tested higher in our audience research than George Clooney in ER,” he confides. I could never have imagined that this type of feedback would not bode well for me in the future.

  Later, at the cocktail reception, when all the local NBC affiliates go to individual areas to meet the stars of the shows, The West Wing section is bedlam. People are pushing and pulling for a moment with stars of a show that hasn’t aired one episode.

  “Holy shit,” says my costar John Spencer, as a guy with ten stations in the Midwest pumps his hand like an old railroad sidecar. “We’re gonna get killed! We gotta get out of here!” he says with a smile.

  “Nah, man!” I say. “This is what it’s really like at a presidential rally. We should all be looking at this as our research!”

  I make my way over to Martin, also getting mobbed. Unlike all the other cast, both Martin and I have been in the spotlight for some time, so we have a little more perspective.

  “None of this means a thing until we get the ratings,” says Martin, looking at the rest of the cast happily taking pictures and signing autographs. I know he’s right. We’re big, we’re state of the art, and we’re coming to a town near you, but unless people watch, we could very well arrive like the Hindenburg.

  The first person I ever knew to play the then new California State Lottery was Emilio and Charlie’s dad. Martin bought enough rolls of tickets at the Mayfair Market on Point Dume to choke a donkey. He just loved the fun of it, the allure of that potential lightning strike that would cover you in massive, found money. He never did find that winning ticket when we were kids. But years later, with The West Wing, he finally did.

  His contract to play B
artlet called for only a few episodes. But with his high-impact performance, the network wanted to see more of him. I think Aaron also discovered that being able to put words into the mouth of the president of the United States was more heady than merely writing for his staffers. But to integrate Bartlet more fully, they would have to make a new deal with Martin. And now, with millions committed to a show about to air that’s been earmarked as a potential winner, Martin holds all the cards. As a veteran of many a negotiation where the studio holds all the cards and kills you, I was happy when Martin, “the neighbor from Home Improvement,” got a gigantic raise, earning six figures for every episode. He’s a great actor, been around much longer than I have, and I love him like a father. And besides, if we all get lucky and the show is a monster hit, everyone will be rewarded. In the meantime, I’m glad to be part of such a great team.

  A few days before we begin shooting season one of The West Wing, I get a call from Bernie.

  “Kid, I just got the strangest call. They want to take away your first billing in the main titles.”

  “But why? And, I mean, we have a deal, right?”

  “Absolutely!” exclaims Bernie.

  “What did you tell them?” I ask, shocked.

  “What do you think I told them? I said, ‘How ’bout, go fuck yourself’!” And I know he’s not exaggerating. Bernie is one of the only people in Hollywood who is unafraid of fallout when defending a client.

  “It’s completely out of line and unfair. You were the one who got that show on the air in the first place. I don’t understand it,” he says.

  We never did get to the bottom of this request. This lack of support would prove to be the first in a series of events that would eventually have me questioning my place on The West Wing. But I had to move beyond it. Actors work with emotion and passion and I could ill afford to have anything begin to dampen my love of this project.