NEED TO KNOW
Allison Janney and Bradley Whitford are in it for the long run.
The actors first met filming The West Wing in 1999, the beloved series in which they costarred as press secretary C.J. Cregg and chief of staff Josh Lyman, respectively. They’ve been close ever since.
As Janney puts it: “Brad and I have spent more time together over the last 20 years than I have with my actual siblings.”
“Because we were on West Wing, [we] were shooting 18-hour days. We had no cell phones. We actually talked to each other,” she tells PEOPLE. “I spent so much time with him, so he feels like my brother.”
The pair reunited onscreen for the first time in The Diplomat, with Whitford joining in season 3 as Janney’s onscreen husband, Todd Penn. Janney says the prospect of having to play “totally different characters — characters who go to bed together” was jarring at first.
“I was like, ‘Oh my God, we’ve got to get in bed together and kiss.’ ”
Courtesy of Netflix
It ended up being “so easy and comfortable,” though, Janney says.
“That was an interesting scene when I read that, and it ended up being one of my favorites. It was really fun and easy and comfortable with Brad because of our history together,” she says of their romantic scenes. “I think it would’ve been more difficult with someone I didn’t know. It was surprisingly really easy and really fun.”
Whitford agreed. He told PEOPLE that the “one thing that surprised me” about the show was “the ease of taking the history we have together and shooting it down a different road.”
“It felt very comfortable. There was no … We’ve actually done other little things together, but it was particularly fun to bring that history into a marriage.”
Janney adds that she was “just excited for everyone on Diplomat to get to meet Brad and experience everything that is Brad, which is fabulous and joyful and just — he’s the dream.”
Gregg DeGuire/WireImage
The actress previously told PEOPLE that Whitford is “family to me” as she said him joining the Keri Russell-led political drama was “a dream come true.”
“Everyone from that show, from West Wing, we spent more time with each other than we did with our families back then. And I love them all,” she said. “So it’s really a real gift to have him play my husband on The Diplomat. It’s so good.”
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The Diplomat season 3 is now streaming on Netflix.
