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Nominated for 95 Emmys and the recipient of 26, the hourlong drama centered on the fictional White House administration of Josiah \u201cJed\u201d Bartlett, played by Martin Sheen. Others in the star-studded cast included Allison Janney, Bradley Whitford, Richard Schiff, Dul\u00e9 Hill, Janel Moloney, Josh Malina, and Melissa Fitzgerald.<\/p>\n
A key theme of the series, which ran from 1999\u20132006 on NBC and marked its 25th anniversary last year, was public service, with characters devoted to the country and to the public good. According to McCormack, series creator Aaron Sorkin once called The West Wing<\/em> a \u201clove letter to public service.\u201d<\/p>\n McCormack says that the \u201cunusually close\u201d nature of The West Wing<\/em> cast members helps them support one another\u2019s nonprofit work. \u201cWe\u2019re on a text chain that lights up all day long,\u201d she says. \u201cWe\u2019re a really, really tight group of friends . . . and I think that service helps keep us close. We do quite a bit of it separately and quite a bit together. If someone sends out the bat signal, we all answer.\u201d<\/p>\n McCormack and Fitzgerald began the book project in 2020, around the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. More than 100 interviews were conducted by Zoom, which McCormack says worked well.<\/p>\n \u201cWe could reach everyone; we were so spread out,\u201d she says. \u201cWe talked to crew, we talked to background actors, writers, producers, everyone involved in the show, so Zoom actually was a great way of doing it. It was nice to connect with everyone and to hear people\u2019s stories\u2014a lot we knew, but tons we didn\u2019t know\u2014and to get people\u2019s different points of view.\u201d<\/p>\n She notes that What\u2019s Next<\/em>\u2014with a title inspired by an oft-repeated phrase from the show\u2014is different from other \u201cfan books\u201d because it was written by cast members. \u201cWe had the support of and the access to creator Aaron Sorkin, producer John Wells, and all the writers. We also got to talk to the head casting director, and he gave us access to his casting binders, which is incredible.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s also a big book,\u201d she continues. At 588 pages, \u201cit was three times the length we thought it was going to be; there\u2019s so much more we could have published and shared. I guess there\u2019s always the chance of a sequel!\u201d<\/p>\n McCormack, along with Sheen and Fitzgerald, visited the real <\/em>White House in August 2024 to deliver the book to President Joe Biden and wife Jill. \u201cThat was amazing. I mean, who gets to do that?\u201d McCormack recalls. \u201cAnd there we were, chatting a little bit, and Martin Sheen was with us. President Biden said to him, \u2018You didn\u2019t tell me how hard this job was,\u2019 and Martin was like, \u2018I didn\u2019t really know. I was just a TV president.\u2019<\/p>\n \u201cThey were really cute together,\u201d she continues. \u201cAnd then [Biden] said, \u2018Why don\u2019t you walk me out to Marine One?\u2019 That\u2019s not a sentence you hear every day. We did, and I couldn\u2019t believe it. I kept thinking I had to wake up. This has to be a dream.\u201d<\/p>\n McCormack always had a dream of being an actor. Growing up in Plainfield, New Jersey, she says, she loved theater and performing. Every year on her birthday, her parents took her to New York City to see a Broadway musical. \u201cI couldn\u2019t believe that was a job, these adults on stage dancing and singing and having a ball! I couldn\u2019t believe that was an actual job adults could have,\u201d she recalls. \u201cI thought, \u2018I\u2019ll do that.\u2019 Spoken with the built-in bravado of an 8-year-old!\u201d<\/p>\n When it came time for college, she says, she applied to five schools and almost enrolled in a five-year joint program in classical singing at Tufts University and the New England Conservatory. But she thought that while she loved classical singing, she wasn\u2019t sure that she wanted five more years and a career in it.<\/p>\n Instead, she decided to follow her older sister, Bridget McCormack \u201988, who already was at Trinity. \u201cThe pull of Bridget . . . we\u2019re really close, and it seemed very easy and right. I had been there [on campus] a lot, and I loved it.\u201d<\/p>\n The sisters overlapped for one year\u2014when Mary was a first-year and Bridget was a senior\u2014and lived in the same residence hall, High Rise, but on different floors. \u201cIt was like we were living in New Jersey again,\u201d McCormack recalls. \u201cI would go up and steal clothes from her, and she\u2019d get mad when I wouldn\u2019t return them. It was fabulous!\u201d<\/p>\n Bridget McCormack, a former chief justice of the Michigan Supreme Court and now CEO and president of the American Arbitration Association-International Centre for Dispute Resolution,\u00a0has similar recollections. \u201cIt was great,\u201d she says. \u201cI was a senior and felt like I could make her transition easier and less stressful. I\u2019m not sure she really needed me for that, but I liked thinking she did. I loved having her around.<\/p>\n \u201cMary is one of a kind,\u201d she adds. \u201cShe is exquisitely talented in her field\u2014not just as an actor and a singer but also as a creator and an editor and a writer. She can see the way to make everything beautiful,\u00a0and she always\u00a0has a gorgeous\u00a0way of explaining or describing people,\u00a0emotions, and memories. And she is hilarious\u2014the funniest person I know.\u201d<\/p>\n McCormack says her big sister kept a protective eye on her. \u201cShe\u2019s always looked after me growing up, and she continued doing it at Trinity. I auditioned for the Pipes [a cappella group], and she was like, \u2018That\u2019s good, that\u2019s the one to do.\u2019 I had all the inside scoop.\u201d<\/p>\n In addition to the Pipes, McCormack sang in the Concert Choir and had supporting roles in all the spring musicals. She recalls with particular fondness each fall\u2019s musical revue, where everyone had a solo. \u201cTrinity is a small school, so that was a small group of people, and we were all really close. I love Gerry Moshell [professor of music, emeritus], and I\u2019m still in touch with him.\u201d<\/p>\n In fact, Moshell arranged and played \u201cMarried\u201d from Cabaret<\/em> at her 2003 London wedding to director and Emmy-nominated producer Michael Morris. Moshell recalls McCormack as one who \u201cdove right away into a daunting\u00a0array\u201d of performance activities.<\/p>\n McCormack created her own interdisciplinary major in comparative arts. \u201cI loved studio arts, and I loved creative writing and English, and I couldn\u2019t decide. I had taken so many courses in each,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n The major was a good fit for her, according to Moshell, who notes that it allowed \u201cthe kind of not-entirely-structured structure in which particularly smart and imaginative Trinity students, like Mary, could assert creativity and thrive.\u201d He adds, \u201cThis holistic approach was surely\u00a0contributory to Mary\u2019s flourishing, intelligently pursued career in TV, movies, and the theater.\u201d<\/p>\n The positive experiences that the McCormack sisters had at Trinity directly affected their younger brother, Will McCormack \u201996, a director, writer, and producer, as well as the recipient of a 2021 Oscar for Best Animated Short Film for If Anything Happens I Love You<\/em>. \u201cIt never occurred to me to go anywhere else,\u201d he says. \u201cTrinity was always my first choice. I idolized my older sisters. So when they went to Trinity,\u00a0I knew I had to.\u201d<\/p>\n He describes McCormack as \u201ca force of nature. [She\u2019s] strong. A real leader with a strong moral compass. An incredible mother and wonderful sister.\u201d He adds, \u201cMary is such a gifted artist. and at Trinity, she was really able to carve out and build her sense of self. She really grew into herself there.\u201d<\/p>\n For McCormack, a liberal arts background laid the groundwork for her next steps. \u201cI feel very lucky that I took a wide range of classes at Trinity because I think that\u2019s the best preparation for an actor,\u201d she says. \u201cIt makes you a deeper, more interesting person, which makes for a better artist.\u201d After McCormack graduated, her older sister, already in an apartment in New York City, invited McCormack to join her. McCormack signed up for a two-year program at the William Esper Studio, a top acting school in Manhattan, and waited tables to pay the bills. She also volunteered two days a week at a small talent agency, where she learned a different side of show business. \u201cYou can see who they represented and why, whose calls got returned, what worked for actors and what didn\u2019t,\u201d she says. \u201cI felt like I had pulled the curtain up.\u201d<\/p>\n The agency eventually took her on as a client, and while she landed some small roles, she still had to keep waiting tables . . . until, that is, she landed a big one.<\/p>\n \u201cThere was a day when I could stop doing all of that. I auditioned for a TV show, and I got it. It was called Murder One<\/em>, a TV show for ABC produced by Steven Bochco, one of the great producers of all time. He made Hill Street Blues<\/em>, L.A. Law<\/em>, NYPD Blue<\/em>, and so many more.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe day I got that job, I had three restaurant jobs\u2014a brunch shift, a dinner shift, and a cocktail thing at night. I did all three, and then I never did it again. . . . It changed my whole life. I went from being hungry to being a working actor in Los Angeles.\u201d<\/p>\n McCormack says many of her roles\u2014nearly 100 in television and film and on the stage\u2014are memorable for different reasons. She cites playing Alison Stern in Private Parts<\/em>, the Howard Stern biopic, as \u201ca massive turning point\u201d for her because of the size of the movie and the size of the role, adding that she and Stern remain good friends.<\/p>\n She also played \u201csaucy\u201d U.S. Marshal Mary Shannon on USA Network\u2019s In Plain Sight<\/em>, which ran from 2008 to 2012, and mom-of-eight-boys Peggy Cleary on the short-lived but highly lauded 2018 ABC comedy series The Kids Are Alright<\/em>, about which McCormack says, \u201cI loved it. I would have done that part forever.\u201d<\/p>\n McCormack also has made her mark on the Broadway stage, including a Tony-nominated run as \u201cover-the-top German flight attendant\u201d Gretchen in Boeing-Boeing<\/em>. \u201cThat was exciting. Because I grew up in New Jersey and seeing plays, for me to be on Broadway is really fun.\u201d<\/p>\n And then, of course, there\u2019s The West Wing<\/em>. Of the cast, she says, \u201cThat\u2019s a group of people who are like real, actual family. Martin Sheen is like a second father. I feel very fortunate for The West Wing<\/em> to have happened in my life.\u201d<\/p>\n McCormack soon will be on the big screen again, this time as Dakota Fanning\u2019s mother in the upcoming horror movie Vicious<\/em>. \u201cIt\u2019s seriously creepy,\u201d she says of the film, which is due out in 2025. She also recently debuted in the Netflix series Heels<\/em>, a critically acclaimed drama about two brothers who work for a family wrestling company.<\/p>\n As she eyes the future, McCormack says looks forward to doing more theater now that her three daughters\u2014ages 20, 17, and 13\u2014are getting older. \u201cTheater is a six-month commitment, so you really can\u2019t do it unless you pick up and move the whole family,\u201d she says. \u201cSo, it was sort of temporarily off the table. But soon, I\u2019ll be back to that chapter.\u201d<\/p>\n What does she enjoy most about being an actor? \u201cYou\u2019re a storyteller. I like playing make-believe,\u201d she says. \u201cBut I also love that every day is different, that I shoot all over the world, that no two days are the same. It\u2019s always new actors, new crews, new locations, new stories . . . and that suits me, that kind of adventure. I love it.\u201d<\/p>\n West Wing Photo: Photo 12\/Alamy Stock <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Story by Sonya Storch Adams Portraits by Catie Laffoon\/Courtesy of Mary McCormack \u201991 \u201cI think there\u2019s something almost like a tonic about watching it in the times we\u2019re living in now,\u201d says Mary McCormack \u201991 of The West Wing, the seven-season hit television show\u2014now streaming on Max\u2014on which she played Deputy National Security Adviser Kate […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":139,"featured_media":0,"parent":3509,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-3513","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.trincoll.edu\/reporter\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/143\/2025\/01\/Whats-Next-book-by-Mary-McCormack-by-Nick-Caito-e1738268331421-222x300.jpg\")
With that in mind, McCormack and Fitzgerald teamed up to write What\u2019s Next: A Backstage Pass to The West Wing, Its Cast and Crew, and Its Enduring Legacy of Service<\/em>. McCormack says readers, especially \u201cWing-nuts\u201d\u2014what the cast admiringly calls superfans of the show\u2014will enjoy the book, which is chock full of behind-the-scenes details intertwined with the public service priorities of the actors. The pages about McCormack\u2019s charitable focus, for instance, explore her devotion to Justice for Vets (a division of All Rise), which benefits veterans; The Trevor Project, which supports LGBTQ+ youth; and Moms Demand Action, which works to protect people from gun violence.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.trincoll.edu\/reporter\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/143\/2025\/01\/McCormack-with-Biden-and-all-2XTKXDA-300x200.jpg\")
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<\/p>\n
\nWhat\u2019s next<\/h4>\n
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\nWhite House Photo: UPI\/Alamy Stock Photo
\nFamily Photo: Courtesy of Mary McCormack \u201991<\/p>\n