UNITED STATES
Entertainment Weekly
BY JEFF LABRECQUE • @JEFFLABRECQUE
Posted February 19 2016
The Spotlight cast boasts one of the deepest acting benches in recent memory. Mark Ruffalo and Rachel McAdams received Oscar nominations for playing two of the Boston Globe reporters who exposed decades of clerical sex abuse in 2002, but the entire ensemble — which includes Billy Crudup, Brian d’Arcy James, Michael Keaton, Liev Schreiber, John Slattery, Stanley Tucci, and many others — has been justly celebrated, winning the group acting prize from the Screen Actors Guild. There’s one player, however, who hasn’t necessarily enjoyed the same attention, even though he’s an Oscar-nominated actor who plays a pivotal role in the film: Richard Jenkins.
If you don’t recall seeing Jenkins, you’re not wrong. He’s never seen, but his performance is loud and clear. Jenkins plays Richard Sipe, the ex-priest whose detailed research about sexual proclivities of Catholic clergy members helped guide the Spotlight reporters when they were still stumbling around in the dark. Some of his accusations are shocking, to the Globe reporters and the movie audience: he estimated that 6 percent of priests act out sexually with children and alleged that Boston’s esteemed Cardinal Bernard Law buried a study that raised similar questions and concerns years before. “Richard understood the culture of secrecy that was generated by the celibacy requirement that resulted in the clergy being a wonderful place for pedophiles and other abusers to hide and prey on children,” says Globe reporter Mike Rezendes, who’s portrayed by Ruffalo in the film. “He became kind of our guru for the entire project for the rest of a year and a half.”
In fact, Sipe had met face-to-face with the Globe reporters at least once, but most of their communication was via phone, which writer/director Tom McCarthy and co-writer Josh Singer quickly latched on to for dramatic effect. “Tom and I referred to him almost as the Voice of God,” says Singer. “There was something really interesting about hearing these facts over the phone. That way, you get them unvarnished: there’s no person or personality attached. You can really focus on the facts. I think it makes the audience lean-in and listen.”
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