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Trump isn't interesting enough for a West Wing reboot, says Aaron Sorkin

'It would look like dead air'

Clarisse Loughrey
Friday 05 January 2018 10:01 GMT
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Donald Trump‘s rise has inevitably seen television’s politically-flavoured offerings forced to reckon with a changed world.

Aaron Sorkin, however, wants none of it: Trump simply isn’t interesting enough to ever inspire a return to The West Wing, as much as the world may crave a reboot of the hit show.

When asked by Juju Chang of ABC News’ Nightline what a Trump-themed West Wing would look like, Sorkin merely replied: “It would look like dead air.”

“I wouldn’t do it because I don’t find him to be a terribly interesting character. He is exactly what he looks like.”

“He only ever talks about two things: Himself and his enemies, and that’s it,” he added. “So it’s a character that you wouldn’t believe the character in a drama. He doesn’t have any of the qualities that you that you need to tell a story. There’s just no blood there.”

If The West Wing were ever to return to screens, Sorkin previously told The Hollywood Reporter that he’d want to focus the story on “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] Bartlett, long since retired, is consulted in the way that Bill Clinton used to consult with Nixon.”


The original series, which ran from 1999 to 2006, saw Martin Sheen as fictional Democratic President Josiah Barlet.

Sorkin’s latest is Molly’s Game, which stars Jessica Chastain as Molly Bloom, the real-life figure behind the world’s most exclusive high-stakes poker game.

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