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| Rob Lowe as | Sam (Samuel Norman) Seaborn | Deputy Communications Director |
| Dulé Hill as | Charlie (Charles) Young | Personal Aide to the President |
| Allison Janney as | C.J. (Claudia Jean) Cregg | Press Secretary |
| Janel Moloney as | Donna (Donnatella) Moss | Assistant to Deputy Chief of Staff |
| Richard Schiff as | Toby (Tobias Zachary) Ziegler | Communications Director |
| John Spencer as | Leo Thomas McGarry | Chief of Staff |
| Bradley Whitford as | Josh (Joshua) Lyman | Deputy Chief of Staff |
| and Martin Sheen as |
Jed (Josiah Edward) Bartlet | President of the United States |
| Special Guest Star Timothy Busfield as |
Danny (Daniel) Concannon | Washington Post Reporter |
| Guest Starring | ||
| Emily Procter as | Ainsley Hayes | Associate White House Counsel |
| Charley Lang as | Matt Skinner | Congressman |
| David Graf as | Colonel Mark Chase | |
| NiCole Robinson as | Margaret | Hooper (last name) / Assistant to Chief of Staff |
| Michael Tomlinson as | Congressman | |
| Gregg Daniel as | Steve Adamley | |
| Co-Starring | ||
| Melissa Fitzgerald as | Carol | Fitzpatrick (last name) Assistant to the Press Secretary |
| Jana Lee Hamblin as | Reporter #1 | Bobbi |
| Don Chastain as | Reporter #2 | |
| Randolph Brooks as | Arthur | Leeds (last name) / Reporter |
| Richard Hoyt Miller as | Air Force One Steward | |
| Timothy Dale Agee as | Air Force One Steward | |
| Michael Cunio as | Adamsley's Aide | Mike |
"Sam's a stingy Uncle, ... On Air Force One, you pay for your own lunch," - Dee Dee Myers
"Coast to Coast"
by Kendall Hamilton
September 6, 1999
Newsweek
here's where they are as of Monday, September 25th [2000]. They're finishing up episode six, and he just turned in episode seven today. He started to brainstorm episode eight during the Forum
Posted at TheWestWing@egroups.com
by Jenn
September 26, 2000
Message 6797
Notes from the Harvard Law School Forum with Aaron Sorkin
We're about to shoot an episode on Air Force One, for instance, and we're going to take liberties, small liberties, with Air Force One, as we take small liberties with our White House set. You are going to absolutely believe this is Air Force One, and it's going to have the effect that we want it to. And that's all that matters. - Aaron Sorkin
"Popular Politics"
by Terence Smith
September 27, 2000
Online NewsHour with Jim Lehrer
PlanetOut: The idea for this storyline came out of a conversation you had with Aaron Sorkin.Charley Lang: Right. I did two episodes of the show last season. This past winter I was working on the No on Knight campaign. [The Knight Initiative, which was passed by California voters in March, prohibits same-sex marriages in the state.] In the midst of doing my political work, I called Aaron up and said that I wanted to talk to him about a topical idea for the show. So I came in and let him know about the issue -- which he was already somewhat familiar with -- and then that evolved into the idea of gay Republicans. Both of us were very curious about how they do that -- how they reconcile their orientation with their political values.
Then I got a call this fall asking if I'd like to do another episode. I didn't know what it was about. But when I got the script, it was all about what Aaron and I had discussed. And in the course of the episode, my character, Congressman Skinner, comes out as gay.
...
PlanetOut: Why does Skinner, as a gay man, support the Marriage Recognition Act?
Charley Lang: Well, it's interesting. Being a gay man myself and a Democrat, it was an interesting challenge to get inside the mind of a man who is gay and who would support something like this. The beauty of Aaron's writing is that he doesn't write black-and-white characters. They're not good guys and bad guys. Everybody he writes has a real, credible humanity. And he makes a case for Skinner, because Skinner gets challenged on the episode. People ask him how he can be a member of a party that disagrees with who he is. The upshot of it is -- as my character talks about -- that he has a lot of other priorities; his life isn't all about being a homosexual.
PlanetOut: Did you feel that how your character dealt with these conflicts was true to life, true to how gay Republicans might really feel?
Charley Lang: To tell you the truth, I don't know a lot about it. I know people who are gay Republicans, but I haven't had this conversation with them. I haven't really gotten into it. But the way that it was brought out in the episode made it make more sense to me than it ever had before. I felt it was a window inside the experience that I had never thought of. In fact, it made me more curious and made me want to have these dialogues. That's what I'm hoping the show will do -- foster dialogue between very polarized elements of the gay community.
"The West Wing's Special Guest Star"
by PlanetOut News Staff
November 15, 2000
PlanetOut
I guess the point that Skinner was trying to make [on The West Wing] - what he says is that his entire life doesn't have to be about being gay. - Aaron Sorkin
"A Few Good Stories"
by Paris Barclay
February 13, 2001
The Advocate