Taking Stock(ard) of first lady on 'The West Wing'

NEW YORK -- Bring up the fact that her sister is mayor of Palm Beach, Fla., and Stockard Channing brusquely interjects: "Why are you mentioning my sister?"

The mention is meant to serve as a preface to asking whether a real-life political animal would have any advice for a sister playing a political animal on television.

Firmly, though politely, she stiff-arms the question and offers only that there's nothing to say. Clearly, she wants the topic dropped.

In that one moment, the 57-year-old actress comes across as prickly and strong-willed as first lady Abigail Bartlet, whom she plays on NBC's Emmy-winning drama "The West Wing."

Otherwise, she's quite voluble and pleasant in talking about getting the role and seeing it gradually grow in the series' third season.

"They sent me the script, and I was barely in it," Channing recalls about her initial appearance in the first season.

She says she was very disappointed with the size of the part . "I'm very used to either spending time figuring out what the character looks like, sounds like, how old she is, what her background is. ... Or I'm presented with information of this sort by the writer or the director," she says.

Building a character

She didn't have the time to do it on her own, and "West Wing" creator-writer Aaron Sorkin didn't supply the biographical back story.

She was working on another project in Toronto when "The West Wing" airlifted her to shoot her short scene.

After a short introduction to Martin Sheen, the scene began -- and Channing and Sheen's President Bartlet had great chemistry.

"That's just luck," Channing says.

She and Sorkin subsequently sat down to lunch and brainstormed her character's development, sussing out that she would be a doctor and she would have a "certain parity" with her husband.

She jokes that she could have shown up for that brief cameo and then the president's wife might have been talked about -- but never seen -- like Niles' wife Maris on "Frasier."