VENICE
Variety
Tom McCarthy Speaks About Opening ‘Spotlight’ In Catholic Italy, How He Cast Michael Keaton, And How Journalism Is Deteriorating
Nick Vivarelli
International Correspondent
@NickVivarelli
Tom McCarthy’s new film “Spotlight,” about the Boston Globe’s Pulitzer Prize-winning investigation in 2002 into the priest pedophilia scandals and subsequent cover-ups within the Catholic Church, is making a splash at the Venice Film Festival where it world premieres this evening after playing positively for the press this morning. Mark Ruffalo, Rachel McAdams and Brian d’Arcy James star in the ensemble drama as the Globe’s Spotlight Team. They are assigned by a new editor, Marty Baron (Liev Schreiber), with investigating allegations of pedophilia. Spotlight editor is Walter “Robby” Robinson, played by Michael Keaton, in his first role after “Birdman.”
You were raised Irish Catholic and you went to Boston College, so you were educated by Jesuits. How did your background play into the film?
It certainly prompted my interest. When I was approached by Blye Faust and Nicole Rocklin approached with this story and the life rights to the reporters, the first person I sat down with was my father to say: ‘I’m doing this.’ He’s a very strong Catholic. And I told him: ‘As soon as they announce it in the papers, you and mom are going to hear about it.’ And sure enough calls started coming from all their friends saying, ‘Why is he doing this?’ ‘Can’t we move on?’ But they heard me out why I wanted to do it, and they agreed.
Did you meet a lot of the Boston Globe guys?
From day-one Josh Singer (who co-wrote the screenplay) and I went down to Boston, sat down with each of them. We started expanding and sat down with the lawyers, survivors, family members, former reporters, lawyers, editors, publishers. Anyone who would talk to us. It was just trying to get as many angles to the story as we could and really trying to understand the context of not just life at the Globe at the time, but of life in Boston.
Now the reporters text me all the time. They are completely annoying. They are relentless reporters. It’s a funny relationship because they are sometimes the trickiest people to interview. Reporters weirdly don’t like that.
Ultimately they are the heroes of our story, and I think we all owe them a debt of gratitude for the work they did. That said, they become our subjects too, so there is always that line that at one point we are going to have to tell the story, and maybe it won’t all be favorable to some degree.
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