Tom McCarthy, by Kate Murphy, New York Times (January 09, 2016)

Tom McCarthy is the director and co-writer of “Spotlight,” a film about the journalists who exposed widespread sexual abuse of children by Roman Catholic priests in Boston and the wider institutional cover-up.

READING Between work and kids, I’m not reading as much as I’d like, which is why I’m leaning into short stories. My wife, who is also a writer, turned me on to “Tenth of December,” a collection by George Saunders. Sometimes it feels very realistic and then it will jump into feeling more fantastical. I’m always interested in people who can subtly, or maybe not so subtly, play with genre.

I’m also reading “The Hug Machine,” by Scott Campbell, because it’s my daughter’s favorite book. It’s about a little boy who will hug anything, whether a tree or a porcupine. He’s not afraid of hugging. A friend of mine gave it to me. When you get a good children’s book from a fellow parent who loves books, it’s such a treat.

LISTENING Brian Koppelman’s podcast, “The Moment.” He’s a writer and director who has been around a long time and has a very impressive résumé. He just really enjoys talking about the creative process and digging in deep.

For music, I listen to the National all the time. Their album “High Violet” may be one of my favorite albums of the last decade. I reached out to them when I was directing “Win Win” and they ended up writing a song for the closing credits of the film. There’s something very sophisticated about their sound; something very orchestral. There’s a density to their music that’s highly effective.

WATCHING I saw “Rams” at Telluride last year. It’s the story of two brothers who run adjacent sheep farms in rural Iceland and haven’t spoken in 40 years. At first it charmed me and then it snuck up and punched me in the gut emotionally. That doesn’t happen a lot. It really caught me off guard.

I started watching women’s college basketball when I was at Yale Drama School when the UConn Huskies started their championship streak. Their fundamentals are so impressive, you just get hooked. One Christmas my wife got me tickets to watch them play. Rebecca Lobo, who was a star player and is now an ESPN commentator, was at the game. And my wife yells, “Excuse me, can my husband get a picture with you?” I was literally like 14. She’s about 6 inches taller. In the picture, I look way too happy and she looks a little weirded out.

FOLLOWING The Marshall Project and ProPublica. They are independent investigative news sites committed to doing the kinds of stories you don’t see anywhere else. What I’d like to see is a similar model on the local level. That’s what “Spotlight” illuminates — it was a local story, and local reporters were the right people to break it.

AUDITIONING I will always consider myself an actor first because that was my entry point into this career. It’s funny, I auditioned for a part in a movie recently and the director said, “Why are you doing this?” Really all I’ve been doing is talking about “Spotlight” for months so it was nice to be in a room thinking about something else.