For ‘Spotlight,’ Actors Portrayed Hunters Chasing Predators

UNITED STATES
The New York Times

By LORNE MANLY
OCT. 30, 2015

Working from a cramped, dingy office, a scrappy band of journalists exposes the Archdiocese of Boston’s decades-long cover-up of sexual abuse of children by scores of priests.

Definitely an investigation worthy of a Pulitzer Prize, which the Boston Globe’s Spotlight team won for that 2002 series. But fodder for a Hollywood film?

The director and co-writer Tom McCarthy, whose credits include “The Station Agent” and “The Visitor,” was convinced that the nuts and bolts of journalism at its finest could make for thrilling cinema. The result is “Spotlight,” opening Friday, Nov. 6, with a budget just under $20 million and an ensemble cast that includes Michael Keaton, Mark Ruffalo, Rachel McAdams and Liev Schreiber.

“Spotlight” allowed Mr. McCarthy and his co-writer, Josh Singer, to explore both the importance of local investigative journalism at a time of convulsive change in the newspaper business and the conspiracies of silence that can surround wrongdoing at seemingly admirable institutions.

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