We Live In A World That Has

I Wrote The Show West Wing For The Two Years Before And The Two Years After 9/11. Suddenly Everyone In The World Had Been Through Something That Our Characters Had Not Been Through; The Whole Trajectory Of The World Had Changed. Yet Our Show Took Place In A Parallel Universe. I Wasn't Really Sure What To Do About This. In No One's Wildest Dreams Did It Occur That An Event Like This Could Possibly Happen.

But Hbo Is Less Interested In How Many People Are Watching Than In How Much The People Who Are Watching Are Liking The Show. They Didn't Set Up Their Business Model To Make Writers Happy. It's Just A Nice Unintended Consequence.

One Of The Biggest Challenges In The Past For Me In Working On The Networks Was That Audiences Have Grown Accustomed To Television Being Something That Keeps You Company-background Music, Something That You Have On While You're Flipping Through A Magazine, Cooking Dinner, Talking On The Phone, Putting The Kids To Bed.

There's A Great Tradition In Storytelling That's Thousands Of Years Old, Telling Stories About Kings And Their Palaces, And That's Really What I Wanted To Do.

The Thing I Know How To Do Most Is Write A Play. I Came Up Loving Plays And Learning About Plays And Writing Plays. I Actually Feel Like An Outsider When I'm Writing Movies And Television.