Head Back toThe West Wing With a NewBehind-the-Scenes Book — Read an Excerpt! (Exclusive)

Mar. 15, 2025

‘What’s Next’ book and the cast of ‘The West Wing’.Photo:Dutton; James Sorensen/NBCU Photo Bank/Getty

Dutton; James Sorensen/NBCU Photo Bank/Getty

Dutton

“He and my brother took care of my dog for six months,” Richard recalls. “So I was forever indebted to Brad for that.” (MELISSA: The dog’s name was Lyle and was, as Richard puts it, “a Manhattan mutt that got into a thousand fights and didn’t win one.”)

Given his long history with Brad, it had to have felt like kismet for Richard — a “sign,” even — when, upon entering the room for his callback, he spotted his old dog-sitter. “I walk in and there he is,” Richard would recall years later. “And he’s playing Josh! I just started giggling, it was so weird.”

Richard Schiff, Bradley Whitford, Rob Lowe and Allison Janney in ‘The West Wing’.Steve Schapiro/NBCU Photo Bank/Getty

Steve Schapiro/NBCU Photo Bank/Getty

Despite the “church laughter” and the resulting fits and starts it caused both actors, Richard got through the callback relatively unscathed. He had come into this phase of the process — reading for the Warner Bros. executives — with Tommy’s assurance that it was “just a formality” and had taken that mostly to heart.

“Well, just so you know,” Richard replied, “I might not show up.”

Tommy nodded at this, not unkindly, but with a knowing smile.

“Yeah, I’ve heard.”

Tommy chuckled. “I’ve heard that too.”

The cast of The West Wing.James Sorensen/NBC/Newsmakers

James Sorensen/NBC/Newsmakers

What Tommy did next made a real difference to Richard and went a long way toward putting him “at ease,” or at least as close to at ease as Richard manages to get. It would also effectively set the course for the next several years of their work together. Tommy put a hand on Richard’s shoulder, looked in his eyes, and said, “I really hope you come tomorrow.”

“There was such love in that gesture,” Richard told us, “such an appreciation, a genuine appreciation for how crazy we all are — and no judgment. He must’ve been thinking, ‘You’re outta your mind! This is, like, the best show that’s come along — you’re not gonna show up?!’But he didn’t do that. He just said, ‘I hope you do show up.’”

Allison Janney.

Allison Janney as C.J. Cregg.James Sorensen/NBC/Getty

At the time, Richard didn’t know Allison all that well. He’d met her one night after a show in New York — “a little off-off-off-Broadway thing” — and remembered how great she’d been. “Then I saw her in Primary Colors.” Allison’s standout turn as a goofy, vaguely flighty adult literacy teacher (who would wind up having a “quickie” with John Travolta’s philandering presidential candidate) had wowed him that night and established the actress in Richard’s mind as truly “special.”

A year or so later, there she was, outside the audition, waiting to test for Claudia Jean Cregg. In that moment, Richard had a classic Richard thought: “I went, ‘Oh God, these guys will never hire her, they’re not that smart.’” Then again, he thought, “If they’re serious about her . . . they really know what they’re doing.”

Allison’s presence that day was one more piece — along with the sky-high quality of Aaron’s script, Brad’s coincidental involvement, Tommy’s kindhearted insight — that contributed to Richard’s burgeoning excitement about the project and his chance to be a part of it. And, of course, we know he did indeed show up for the test.

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As he remembers it, the audition for the NBC executives took place in a cramped little room, where everybody sat in rows, stacked up narrowly behind a single desk. “Like an album cover of suits.”

Allison Janney and Joshua Malina in The West Wing.Paul Drinkwater/NBCU Photo Bank/Getty

Paul Drinkwater/NBCU Photo Bank/Getty

Richard says he was “so bad, I started laughing in the middle of it and said, ‘I’m sorry, this really sucks. I suck today. Let me start again.’”

But an hour later, walking across the lot to his car, a decidedly un-Richard thought came to mind: “I think I got this thing.”

When Richard asked him why, he was told, “Because I put my ear against the door when you auditioned and I couldn’t hear a f—in’ word you said.”

source: people.com