Tom McCarthy, the writer and director of Spotlight, joins Brian this week to talk about his new film which tells the true story of how a Pulitzer Prize-winning Boston Globe team unmasked the widespread cover-up of child abuse in Boston’s Catholic Church. Tom has written and directed a number of other great films including The Station Agent, The Visitor, and Win Win. Today, the two talk about how Tom bounced back from a critical and commercial failure in his 2014 movie, The Cobbler, to create what is now being regarded, in Spotlight, as a frontrunner for this year’s best picture. Plus, Tom talks about his career as an actor, the role of journalism in today’s society, and how some of our most calamitous mistakes aren’t the result of one big bad decision, but of a lot of small mistakes, winks, and people looking the other way.
 
Spotlight opens in select theaters on November 6th.
 
Topics mentioned on today’s show include:

Spotlight
The Station Agent
The Visitor
The Wire
Up
The Boston Globe
The Cobbler
Rounders
Empire
Win Win
Evita
Noises Off
Boston College
Star Wars
Harold and Maude
Repo Man
Soul Asylum
The Replacements
The Jayhawks
The Guthrie Theater
The Front Page
Yale Drama School
Axis Theatre
Almost Famous
Jesus Son
Ray Donovan
"Calling Out Bill Cosby's Media Enablers, Including Myself" by David Carr
"What Do We Really Know About Osama Bin Laden’s Death?" by Jonathan Mahler
"There’s Just One Problem with Those Bin Laden Conspiracy Theories" by Mark Bowden
All The President’s Men
The Insider
Billions

 
People mentioned on today's show:

Tom McCarthy
Tom McArdle
Tony Gilroy
Adam Sandler
Danny Strong
Jon Hamm
Peter Dinklage
Bobby Cannavale
Patricia Clarkson
Patti LuPone
Hal Ashby
Amy Poehler
Dave Pirner
Marc Perlman
Doug Hughes
Dalton Trumbo
Anton Chekhov
Jean-Pierre Melville
Francois Truffaut
Sultan Kosen
Ethan Hawke
James Bundy
Richard Jenkins
Michael Keaton
Liev Schreiber
Rachel McAdams
John Slattery
Mark Ruffalo
Stanley Tucci
Billy Crudup
Paul Gilfoy
Eileen McNamara
Paul Giamatti

 
This episode of The Moment is brought to you by Braintree. Looking to set up payments for your business? Braintree gives your app or website a payment solution that accepts just about every payment method with one simple integration. Plus, we’ll give you your first $50,000 in transactions fee-­free. To learn more, visit BraintreePayments.com/Moment.
 
And by The Message, a new podcast series from GE Podcast Theater.
 
Email: themomentbk@gmail.com
Twitter: @BrianKoppelman
iTunes: itunes.com/themoment
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