Bradley Whitford on Reuniting With Aaron Sorkin on Broadway and Getting a Star on the Walk of Fame: ‘Feels Like a Time Machine’
by Carole Horst · VarietyFor Bradley Whitford, being back on Broadway in “A Few Good Men” and reuniting with writer Aaron Sorkin, feels like “a time machine.”
When Whitford was cast in the original 1989 Broadway production of “A Few Good Men,” little did he know a friendship and creative collaboration would be born — one that most notably led to the long-running series “The West Wing.”
“It was an extraordinary thing, and it’s where I met Aaron. ‘The West Wing’ never would have happened if that hadn’t happened. It’s where we became friends,” Whitford says on a phone call from his New York base, where he’s in rehearsals for the new production of the iconic play. It opens Oct. 8 at Lincoln Center Theater, just about one week after he receives a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame Sept. 30. “West Wing” co-stars Martin Sheen and Dule Hill are scheduled to speak at the ceremony.
In the revival, Whitford tackles Col. Jessup, so memorably played by Jack Nicholson in the 1992 film — and even if you’ve never seen the play or film, you know the line that Nicholson yells at Kaffee (Tom Cruise in the film): “You can’t handle the truth!”
Since he landed the role, he’s repeatedly been asked about how he’ll say the iconic line.
“I woke up and my lovely wife was kind of gazing at me, and she was just like, ‘How are you going to say it? I heard you running lines last night.’ And I’m like, ‘I’m not gonna do it.’ My own wife. This is ridiculous,” he says with a laugh. “I don’t know how I’m gonna do it. I shouldn’t know how I’m gonna do it. She’s like, ‘Do it,’ and I did it, and she was not impressed.”
Sorkin was just 26 and Whitford, 30, when they first met. “We were talking about how strange it is because Aaron is like an institution. I’m doing this play where, frankly, it’s much better to be the understudy who surprises you,” he says in a characteristically self-deprecating way. In the original production, he played both Lt. Ross and the understudy for the role of Lt. Kaffee. “It’s much better to be that than the guy with his name on the poster. I can tell you that.”
Whitford jokes about not taking acting seriously — “I love acting, I’m just not sure I respect it,” he says — telling a story about how after an L.A. screening of “Get Out,” “people were blown away.”
“All these people, like, blowing smoke up my ass, and I’m kind of believing it,” he says. “My kid turns to me and very casually says, ‘No offense, Dad. I’ve seen dogs be good in movies.’ Which is only devastating because it’s true.”
But it’s his way of staying grounded. He allows himself this aphorism: “The best way to take the work seriously is to not take yourself seriously doing the work. There are two atmospheres on a set. One is, ‘I hope you don’t fuck this up,’ and the other is, ‘I can’t wait to see what you’re gonna do.’ And now that I am a white-haired senior citizen about to have the star on the Walk of Fame, I know the best way to get to the good work is for the atmosphere to be more like recess than like school.”
The three-time Emmy winner’s resume is packed with memorable characters, from “The West Wing,” “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip,” “The Handmaid’s Tale” and “Transparent” to “Get Out,” “tick… tick… BOOM!,” “Death by Lightning” and, most recently, “The Diplomat.” But that’s just a fraction of his career.
And he hopes to do more comedies moving forward, pointing to a short directed by his wife, Amy Landecker, for Funny or Die called “Bradley Whitford: Emotional Stuntman.”
“That may be my favorite part ever,” he says, and you believe him. He also loved the work he did with her — and loved working with her — on her 2025 feature debut, the comedy “For Worse.”
As for his honor on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, he feels odd.
“I always said, there’s no segues in show business. You feel like you’re starting out, and then suddenly you’re Wilford fucking Brimley,” he says with a wry laugh. He thought about his late parents when he first got the Walk of Fame news. “I wish they could be there because they would really get a kick out of that. They certainly didn’t push me into show business, but I have vivid memories of my father’s joy at a high school play, taking a picture. They would really get a kick out of it that I get to spend all eternity with Allison Janney and Lucille Ball, dodging dog doo.”
The kid from Wisconsin got hooked on acting in grade school — “I will probably never be better than I was in seventh grade as Teddy in ‘Arsenic and Old Lace,’” he says.
“It sounds really corny, but I was like, Oh, my God! When I play a sport, I have to turn off my brain and my heart. When I read a book, I have to turn off my body. When I play an instrument, I have to stand still. But this is everything,” he remembers. “I really had that moment in seventh grade. Like, holy fuck, I need my brain. I need my heart. I need to prepare. I need to let go. And I guess I still enjoy that.”
Back to the present, Whitford is thrilled to be reuniting with Sorkin for “A Few Good Men,” and sees the urgent relevancy to today in this 37-year-old play he says is about obeying — and so much more.
“It’s not only about obeying illegal orders, it’s about what I think is a really fundamental question going on in the world: What is the best way to survive? Is it through cooperation, or is it through dominance?” he says. “And I see the play as a kind of an argument about that.”
Though it raises questions about how we use the law to solve problems and the men in charge of the military, Sorkin’s writing is still infused with hope. Whitford feels that Sorkin is radical in his own way: “It’s kind of radical not to be cynical.”
The actor is outspoken about his progressive politics and works closely with many different organizations.
“Something I’ve been saying for a long time is — pulling together what a bunch of people have said — despair is a luxury that my children can’t afford, that their future can’t afford, and action is the antidote,” says Whitford. “What I see as the sort of civic virus of this malignant narcissist who has somehow gotten himself elected again, we have to fight our way out of this. We can’t give in to it.”
He continues, “I’m actually amazed because I do a lot of stuff with the Democratic Party in my home state of Wisconsin. My fear is always that young people — justifiably — are going to check out, get cynical about the political process and leave that process and sentence themselves to a gulag dictated by the business interests who do participate in the political process. And I haven’t seen that happen. And I’m actually optimistic about how things are going to change politically, but boy, I didn’t see this coming.”
He’s also very aware that some want celebrities to shut up about politics.
“There’s nothing less democratic than telling people they should shut up. I try not to censor myself. I always feel like I should be doing more,” he says. “Uninformed celebrities spouting their idiotic political views start with the guy in the Oval Office.”