Creation and Development
According to series creator Aaron Sorkin, Schiff was cast in the role of Toby Ziegler over many other actors auditioning, including Eugene Levy. Schiff created his own backstory for the character by wearing his own wedding ring, something Sorkin and fellow executive producer Thomas Schlamme did not notice until the show's eighth episode, while planning to give Toby an ex-wife. "I had always imagined that his first wife had died, which accounts for his sadness, and why someone would devote himself to public service and be so singular about it," says Schiff. "But then, Aaron and Tommy threw that right out the window." Richard Schiff claimed during an interview on Britain's BBC News 24 that the character had been heavily based upon the Scots-American political advisor Patrick Cohen who was prominent in Bill Clinton's 1992 Presidential campaign and is viewed as one of the key architects of New Labour.
Read more about this topic: Toby Ziegler
Famous quotes containing the words creation and/or development:
“The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn, and Egypt, Greece, Rome, Gaul, Britain, America, lie folded in the first man.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Dissonance between family and school, therefore, is not only inevitable in a changing society; it also helps to make children more malleable and responsive to a changing world. By the same token, one could say that absolute homogeneity between family and school would reflect a static, authoritarian society and discourage creative, adaptive development in children.”
—Sara Lawrence Lightfoot (20th century)