Josh Malina has been clever add to 'West Wing' ensemble

BURBANK, Calif. -- The vice president's top aide, Will Bailey, is explaining the "talking points on the VP's energy speech" to White House press secretary C.J. Cregg so she can help him "control the media."

Their exchange is typical of the complex and often cynical pingpong of information that bounces about the fictional halls of power on NBC's "The West Wing."

Standing in one of those Washington corridors, built on the Warner Bros. studio lot, Josh Malina, who plays the bespectacled Bailey, gave his script an easy once-over before stepping in front of the cameras.

Malina himself no longer needs glasses, having undergone laser eye surgery, but he's kept his specs on the show.

"I think that was an Aaron decision with which I concurred. Any prop or costume piece that will help me appear as smart as the character, I like it," Malina says with a grin.

He's referring to the show's creator, Aaron Sorkin, who quit at the end of last season. Malina and Sorkin both grew up in the New York suburbs of Westchester County and met through family connections.

Malina has had a role in every one of Sorkin's projects, including supporting parts in the films "A Few Good Men," "Malice" and "The American President." More prominently, he played the clever associate producer Jeremy Goodwin on ABC's "Sports Night."

'Classic Aaron creation'

The "Game On" episode of "The West Wing" in October 2002 was his first appearance as the political maverick Bailey, who irked the powers that be by running a congressional campaign for a dead man "because there are issues that can still be argued, even if the candidate is no longer alive."

"He was a classic sort of Aaron creation," says Malina, remarking that Sorkin is incapable of writing characters who aren't "very, very, very smart and hyperarticulate and -- most of them -- incredibly dedicated to what they do."

Malina was initially signed for a half-dozen episodes. "The way Aaron put it originally, probably to spare my feelings, was, 'We'll see whether you're happy. Whether we're happy.' As if there was much chance that after six episodes I was going to go, 'You know it's not working out from my point of view. I don't want to continue!"'

When Rob Lowe, who played deputy communications director Sam Seaborn, left the show last season in a reported salary dispute, there was room to pull Bailey into the regular mix.

Speechwriter debut

He first entered President Bartlet's White House as a speechwriter but then segued slightly beyond the pale to run the office of Vice President Bob Russell (Gary Cole), where he finds himself "not exactly on the same team" as all the president's men and struggling with the issue of idealism versus practicality.

Current affairs jargon, like in the energy speech scene with Allison Janney, who plays Cregg, is regular content on the series.

But Malina, 38, certainly wouldn't want to fluff any lines on this occasion. Richard Schiff, who co-stars as communications director Toby Ziegler, is directing for the first time and recently the cynical Ziegler and the opinionated Bailey have been in conflict.

"Luckily we don't get along in real life," Malina jokes, while expressing admiration for the way Schiff is handling the task.

Mary McCormack guest stars as deputy national security adviser Kate Harper, who could also appear next season when Bailey is supposed to play a prominent part in efforts to negotiate a peace process in the Middle East.

Alex Graves, a "West Wing" co-executive producer, says Malina fit in immediately with the show's intense work ethic and that "rare" phenomenon: "a group of really great, intelligent, nice adults who are also actors."

Bailey's move to the VP's office, where his opinions stand out more succinctly, was made, Graves says, "because part of the genesis of the character is he's not to be kept out of a room, he's too valuable."

A serious poker player, Malina is the co-executive producer of Bravo's "Celebrity Poker Showdown," which kicks off 12 new episodes on May 27 (9 p.m. EDT).

He says his love of card games goes back to his father's "very elaborate and sinister version of 'Go Fish' in which you were allowed to lie a certain number of times ... but there was an honor system that you wouldn't cheat beyond the given terms!"

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