Aaron Sorkin has been floating the idea of bringing back his critically acclaimed show The West Wing back to television for several months. And while many of the cast members have gone on to other shows since the show ended its run in 2006, several have already claimed they’d be on board for a revival.
“Well, it’s still running on Netflix, so I think it’s holding up quite well,” Martin Sheen, who played President Jed Bartlet, said during an interview at We Day on Thursday when asked about the show’s lasting popularity. “It has a lot to teach us in today’s situation, that we could not have anticipated before, so I think it’s still very powerful.”
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“I think I’m a little old for the White House at this point,” Martin joked. “[But] I still got the energy.”
Elisabeth Moss, now of Handmaid’s Tale fame, said she’d love to come back and reprise her role as daughter of the president, Zoey Bartlet.
“Are you kidding? I’d be in!” Moss told Entertainment Tonight at the premiere of The Handmaid’s Tale‘s second season. “That’s where I got my start. They just gotta call me.”
Emmy-winning actor Bradley Whitford (Josh Lyman) said back on April 14 that 2018 is the perfect time for the show to reappear.
“People have been saying, ‘Oh you should bring it back.’ I always say you want to go before your banana turns brown, and that’s great life advice.
“There’s been a wave of successful reboots, which, economically, makes sense because the world is so fractured and these things have a built-in audience.”
The idea of a reboot was first teased when Sorkin said in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter that he imagines This Is Us actor Sterling K. Brown would be his choice for the president upon the show’s return.
“Sterling K. Brown as the president, and there’s some kind of jam, an emergency, a very delicate situation involving the threat of war or something, and [President] Bartlet [played by Martin Sheen], long since retired, is consulted in the way that Bill Clinton used to consult with Nixon,” Sorkin said when pitching the idea.
Upon hearing the news, Brown personally reached out to Sorkin on Twitter and wrote “#AaronSorkin if you are serious, sir, I would be honored!”
While there has been plenty of discussion in interviews, neither Sorkin nor the show’s original home NBC has confirmed such a reboot has been given the green light just yet.