Aaron Sorkin Suggests ‘West Wing’ Reboot With Sterling K Brown as President

Show creator has “standing offer” to “This Is Us” star

Aaron Sorkin Sterling K Brown
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Aaron Sorkin says he has a “standing offer” from NBC to reboot “The West Wing,” but the lauded screenwriter and creator of the hit show that aired from 1999 to 2006 says he has no interest in adapting the Trump White House for television.

In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter published on Wednesday, the “Molly’s Game” director called the president “a really dumb guy with an observable psychiatric disorder,” and that’s not a character he’s interested in putting onscreen.

But Sorkin has kicked around ideas for a reboot, and his preferred premise involves Sterling K. Brown, the Emmy-winning star of NBC’s “This Is Us” as president.

“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 told THR, noting that he hasn’t quite figured out how he would incorporate other returning characters.

The idea of a “West Wing” reboot has been tossed around for a while, and NBC boss Bob Greenblatt revealed in August that it was among the list of shows the network was eyeing for a potential reboot following this fall’s revival of “Will & Grace.”

And Sorkin isn’t the only one with ideas. “Ballers” star Richard Schiff hinted earlier this year that he ran a concept past the creator that would change the location of the political drama, saying that Sorking liked it “a lot.”

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