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He’s taken to plotting

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After years of navigating the wonk-infused, “did you catch that policy point?” dialogue of “The West Wing,” Bradley Whitford has the cadence in his head. This season, he had his own plot in mind as well, a story (or three) that will play out Wednesday in an episode he wrote for the NBC political drama that’s in its sixth season.

It’s a complex first attempt for Whitford, 45, an Emmy winner for his role as Deputy Chief of Staff Josh Lyman, and the installment has more plot lines than most feature films.

Among the story threads: President Bartlet’s latest multiple sclerosis attack has robbed him of his balance, Lyman asks Congressman Santos (Jimmy Smits) to run for president, an anti-gay-marriage amendment is attached to the budget, and rumors swirl in cyberspace that C.J. Cregg (Allison Janney) is a lesbian. And of course, there are a few twists and turns along the way.

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This episode marks the first time you’ve written for the series.

It is really kind of the first time I have ever written. It was daunting. I’ll tell you how it happened. I have written reams privately over the years. Writing is something I have always wanted to do -- both novels and scripts. There are writers in my family. My mother began writing in her 60s and my sister writes children’s books, and my brother is actually a journalist and has written a couple of nonfiction books. As an actor, I have always felt, though I haven’t felt it on this show, that eventually you get frustrated with the limitations of being a pawn in telling a story and at some point you want to take more responsibility.

The way this particular thing happened was a shock. I was supposed to direct an episode, which I have never done before this spring, and I called [executive producer] John Wells and I said I have an idea for a story I would love to work on with the writers. He said, “What’s the idea?” and I told him.

What was your initial concept?

I was interested in and continually horrified with the way social bonds that create little polarizations tend to come up around election time. The gay-marriage issue was always something that was interesting to me . I had finished the script about 10 days before the presidential elections. I was watching how brilliantly [the Republicans] had brought up the gay-marriage issue in particularly pivotal states. It is horrifying to me that moral values in this society are achieved from not letting gay couples [get married].

The other thing I was interested in was how rumors can clang around cyberspace and become news. It bangs around the Internet and becomes something that these candidates have to deal with, and it becomes something that eventually reporters have to ask about. I thought it would be interesting to have one of our candidates -- a Democrat -- manipulating the gay-marriage issue and at the same time C.J. is put on the defensive.

So how did you go from pitching the idea to actually writing the script?

I pitched the story to do in March. I am shooting a lot this year, and I just wanted to work with the writers on this thing. First, John said write [up the idea]. And he read it. He was very encouraging and said do an outline. So I asked one of the writers what an appropriate outline would be. John and I talked about it a little bit and I did a longer outline.

[John] said, “Well, we are going to do this story and you got a very busy acting schedule in front of you. We could co-write it, I can write it or you can write it.” I said, “I want to write it.”

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Did Wells make a lot of changes in your script?

One of the great things about the way John works is that he has this structure very deep in his bones. He is involved in the writing of every one of his shows. His notes were really great because when I was stuck, they were the notes where he didn’t say, “I would do it this way.” He said, “I see where you are trying to go.” He was very helpful, and the writer who I had originally thought would write this, Eli Attie, Al Gore’s [former] speechwriter, he really sort of helped me sort out the chess game.

What did your fellow cast members think of the script?

They all thought I was insane because it was a very busy time. Richard [Schiff] was incredibly supportive, and that meant a lot to me. He had a confidence in me that I didn’t have. It is [great] good fortune to go through something like this in an atmosphere that is so supportive and so protective. It is a very different thing from the hell that writers go through in a vacuum.

With this script under your belt, do you want to write more?

I am dying to!

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