I'm Alan Olga and this is clear and vivid conversations about connecting and communicating. Tommy, Shlami, the director of the West Wing, had visited the White House many times

and what he noticed from when he was at the White House was that, you know, the minute you ended a conversation with someone, someone came up and handed them something, and then they were moving, and then you were on the move with that person, and the energy never ended. It just was this constant flow. And Aaron, being Aaron, needed to add a line. And so he added, what's next? And it's a brilliant line because it sort of tell exactly what Tommy was wanting energy wise is all

jam-packed into that two-word sentence right it means like we're the work's never

done we're gonna continue so what's next what's next

that's Mary McCormick she and Melissa Fitzgerald shows those two words what's next as

the title of their new book.

As regular cast members of the television show, The West Wing, they've written an engaging,

funny, and often moving account of the seven seasons of the series ran from 1999 to 2006.

I was looking forward to our conversation if for no other reason than that for the last two seasons of the West Wing I had such a good time being part of the company

playing the Republican senator running for president Arnold Vinick.

Well you brought back many happy memories for me with this book.

Thank you.

Thank you for being part of it.

It was such a pleasure and a treat to be on the show with everybody so fully committed.

It was really nice to see.

I think it's going to surprise people who read this book and surprise me a little bit

in spite of the fact that the show is so entertaining so

revelatory that it was really hard to sell to the networks.

Yeah. Why do you suppose that was? One of the reasons, and Mary can talk about this too,

is that it had never been done before.

A political show had never, ever been successful on network television

prior to that.

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