West Wing star says no to office

Martin Sheen won two terms in office as a fictional US President

West Wing star Martin Sheen said he has been put off running for political office by all the meetings he would have to attend if he was elected.

Mr Sheen, who played US President Jed Bartlet in the hit show, told the Oxford Union he did not have the "character" to make it in politics.

Mr Sheen said he had been approached by the Democrats to run for the US Senate in 2004 but had turned the offer down.

"I couldn't bear sitting in meetings all day," he told the debating society.

Mr Sheen said the offer to run for office was "tempting" but he would not have been suited to the daily routine of governing.

"I don't have any aptitude for it," he said.

Mr Sheen played a fictional Democrat President for seven years in The West Wing.

Asked about his own political ambitions, Mr Sheen made an apparent reference to Ronald Reagan, who made the real-life transition from Hollywood to the White House.

"We already had an old actor in national politics and it did not work out so well," he said.

The prominent Democrat supporter revealed he had been arrested 66 times, most recently in 2007 - for trespassing on a nuclear test facility.

"Acting is what I do for a living," he added. "Activism is what I do to stay alive."