Posted in: NBC, streaming, TV | Tagged: aaron sorkin, nbc, rob lowe, sam seaborn, The West Wing

Rob Lowe Compares His "The West Wing" Run to "Abusive" Relationship

The West Wing star Rob Lowe is speaking out about his time on NBC & Aaron Sorkin's political drama - and he doesn't paint a pretty picture.

Published Thu, 10 Aug 2023 10:54:08 -0500

by Ray Flook

Comments

In terms of television dramas with lasting impacts, Aaron Sorkin's political drama The West Wing is one of the shows that are just as relevant today as ever before. But behind the scenes, the NBC series didn't sound like a great experience for Rob Lowe – who portrayed White House communications director Sam Seaborn during the first four seasons (reprising the role in 2006 during the final season and in 2020 for HBO's reunion special to benefit When We All Vote). "Whenever I talk to actors who complain about, you know, their relationships on their shows, it happens — it happens in any workplace," Lowe shared with Podcrushed hosts Penn Badgley, Nava Kavelin, and Sophie Ansari during a recently-posted pre-SAG-AFTRA strike interview. "You could be in an environment where people sandbag you, want to see you fail, don't appreciate you, whatever it is."

"Whenever I share my stories, people are like, 'I will never share my own stories again,'" Lowe added, discussing how he shared some stories in the past but that there were others he didn't that are apparently far worse. "They would make your hair stand up, and there's some of them I wrote. I shared some of them in my book, but I purposely didn't share half of the other ones because it would make the people involved look so bad that I didn't want to do it to them. So, I did not have a good experience." To drive the point home, Lowe compared his situation on the NBC series to "being in a relationship that was abusive and taking it" – something he was seeing his kids go through. "'She's the popular girl, everybody likes her, she's beautiful, it must be great' — all the things that people would say about making 'The West Wing' to me. 'It's so popular, it's so amazing, it must be amazing,' Lowe explained to make his point. "But I know what it's like, and if I couldn't walk away from it, then how could I empower my kids to walk away from it?" The actor added, "I walked away from the most popular girl at school, but I also knew that it was a super-unhealthy relationship, and it was the best thing I ever did."