Sam Seaborn

Sam Seaborn is Deputy White House Communications Director, a gifted speechwriter with an earnest belief in the power of words to do good. Idealistic almost to a fault, he's the staffer most likely to lose sleep over a phrase or a principle, chasing the right sentence and the right policy with equal fervor.

Rob Lowe plays Sam's idealism without irony, which is riskier than it sounds — the show lets him be naive, even foolish, and trusts the audience to love him anyway. His late-night scenes drafting speeches, agonizing over one word, capture something true about why people go into public service in the first place.