Resurrecting this thread from a couple years back, which never got answered, in light of the approaching series finale:
On the “special features” disk that came with The West Wing’s first season on DVD, the casting director mentioned that he and the producers had auditioned an actor for the recurring role of President Bartlet, who did a “great job,” and whom they were “a couple hours away from a deal” with. But then they reconsidered, and ended up with Martin Sheen.
Does anyone know who the first actor was? (I’m looking for factual information, not speculation about who else might have been a good choice.)
It may not be the right answer, so pencil it in for the undesired speculation. We were watching Yanks on cable yesterday and my wife mentioned that William Devane had been considered for some major role that wound up going to somebody else. I had read something like that about him just this past week or so. So that’s my guess. He has had several roles that capitalize on his Kennedy resemblance. I have no idea if he’s your man, though.
Sounds like pretty good speculation to me. Martin Sheen and William Devane were both well known for portraying President Kennedy, who was clearly a model for President Bartlet. During the series, Devane played President Bartlet’s secretary of state, who was considered for vice president when Vice President Hoynes resigned.
More interesting (to me, at least) than who played the President was that, for a long time, Aaron Sorkin didn’t want to have ANYONE play the President. His original plan was to concentrate solely on the aides, speechwriters, assistants to assistants, etc.
The President was supposed to be a distant, shadowy figure, of little immediate relevance to the people who supposedly worked for him.
An AP story about the show a few months ago mentioned in passing that Sidney Poitier had auditioned for the part. Sorkin had worked with Sheen on “The American President,” in which Sheen played the White House chief of staff, and maybe had a higher comfort level with him.
Not exactly. The original plan was that the show would focus on Rob Lowe’s character, with the President appearing in the pilot and as a guest start in perhaps 1/4 of the following episodes. When Marty gave his dynamite performance in the pilot, they signed him as a series regular and reworked the show to include him in every episode.
Devane was CLEARLY born to play oily captains of industry who hatch plans to have their trophy wives killed.
Another prominent choice for Sam Malone was NFL veteran Fred Dryer – the show was originally going to be built around a former football player instead of a former baseball player.
That’s the one. CJ was a little taken aback at how plain-spoken he was about the various foreign challenges the US faced, and wanted to keep him away from the press because she was concerned he’d distract them from the debate. After the debate went so well for the President, however, she happily sent him forth to talk to the ink-stained wretches.
