Stories I Only Tell My Friends: An Autobiography (30 page)

It’s one of my agents, Tiffany Kuzon, on the phone.

“I’m sending you a script for a TV pilot. I don’t know if it will get on the air, it’s been on the shelf for a year already. I don’t know if you want to do a TV series, I don’t even know if you want to act anymore.”

“C’mon. I’ll
always
want to act.” I chuckle. “I just need it to be of some quality.”

“Well … this script’s pretty damn good,” says Tiffany.

“What’s it called?”

“The West Wing.”

CHAPTER
19

Written by Aaron Sorkin. Well, that’s a good sign. I’m sitting down to read this would-be TV pilot script and I remember Sorkin’s name from the movie
Malice
, a thriller I read a few years ago. I loved its big, snappy speeches (Google “Alec Baldwin, I am God” and you’ll get a delicious taste) and had lobbied for a role to no avail.

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.