 Aaron Sorkin (qv) told Entertainment Weekly that the first actor  he and the producers wanted to play President Bartlet was  Sidney Poitier (qv). That idea was abandoned when Poitiers fee  was, in Thomas Schlamme (qv)s words, "very high", and  John Wells (III) (qv) was able to ascertain that Poitier was not  interested when his manager asked Wells to stop calling.