A Quote by Allison Janney

I've never been with a group of people for that long. I mean, even my family I don't think I know as intimately as the people I worked with on 'West Wing.' — © Allison Janney
I've never been with a group of people for that long. I mean, even my family I don't think I know as intimately as the people I worked with on 'West Wing.'
Any group of people that has been subordinate absorbs the idea of our own subordination, and that it is natural, and comes to think that the only way to survive is to identify with the powerful. And I think that is not surprising, and it is what happens to a lot of right-wing women. I mean they think they better do what the powerful tell them do otherwise they'll be in even more trouble.
Pretty much up until The West Wing, our leaders had always been portrayed in popular culture as either Machiavellian or dolts. But I thought, "What if we show a group of people who are highly competent, they're going to lose as much as they win, but we're going to understand that they wake up every morning wanting to do good?" That was really the spirit behind The West Wing.
I hang around a core group of people, a small group of people. They've been around me for a long time. They know my personality. They know me in and out, same as my family.
The universe works in mysterious ways and for me it worked out perfectly. With all respect to everybody else, Aaron Sorkin is and was The West Wing, full stop. There's no West Wing without him.
A lot of groups, they get put together. But we don't even think of each other as a group. I don't think I'm in a group with two other guys, where I don't know their moms and their grandmas, their aunties, and I don't know where they came from. This is my immediate family. These are the only people I know. That's why we be around each other so much.
What we're doing on 'The West Wing' is fictional. It's not a place to learn about politics or government. Has there ever been a fundraiser on 'The West Wing?' No. So right there, you're in Disneyland.
The West has never been all of the world that matters. The West has not been the only actor on the stage of modern history even at the peak of the West's power (and this peak has perhaps now already been passed)... It has not been the West that has been hit by the world; it has been the world that has been hit - and hit hard - by the West.
I know that some of the folks in the press are uptight about this [moving the press corps out of the West Wing ], and I understand. What we're - the only thing that's been discussed is whether or not the initial press conferences are going to be in that small press - and for the people listening to this that don't know this, that the press room that people see on TV is very, very tiny. Forty-nine people fit in that press room.
I'm not pro-war. But I think war has been the dominant condition of humankind, and peace has been the anomaly - certainly sustained periods of peace that profit great masses of people - and I think war has worked, even awful hellish wars: worked to staunch fascist aggression in Europe, worked to preserve the Union after secession in the United States, etc. Not always, maybe not often, but to say never is to reject history in favor of a wishful unreality.
It's good to have it over with. I worked on it a long time, and I didn't know what people were going to think of it. Would people like it? Would they buy it? So far it's been doing pretty well.
If you've ever been in the West Wing, it's like a little rabbit warren. Everybody's crammed in there on top of each other, and you're eating breakfast, lunch, and dinner at the mess with people. And so you really get to know each other very well. So, I think they just weren't worried.
I have talked to more people who are in politics who have said to me, "[House of Cards] is closer than you can imagine. It's the most accurate description of how politics actually works that we've ever seen." I mean, West Wing - beautiful, wonderful idea of how democracy should work. But I've had more people in politics say they think House of Cards is closer. I - don't know whether to take that as a compliment or a sad state of affairs.
There are people who are genuinely upset in the Tea Party. I understand that. But that movement was funded with seed money from right-wing billionaires, the Koch brothers, and promoted on Fox News, and turned into a stocking horse for the right-wing agenda that a lot of people have been trying to push on the country for a long time.
I think family is very important in West Virginia and has long been so because the mountains made travel difficult in the past, and family members had to depend on each other.
My family came to Australia on the First Fleet. My family’s been in that country for a long time, over 100 years. If your family’s lived in Australia for a long time, everyone has a little bit of [Aborigine blood]. I know my family does because we have an eye condition that only Aboriginal people have.
I think even the Hollywood money people are saying they've got to get the party back from the Clinton wing. They can't, you know, keep nominating these Northeast liberals. They have to look for people who can win.
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