Participant Media has announced that principal photography for “Spotlight” began today in Boston and they will head to Toronto next week. Many thanks to my friend Nick for the heads up! Rachel will star in the movie alongside Mark Ruffalo, Stanley Tucci, Michael Keaton and many more. The press release also confirms some exciting new cast additions including John Slattery. Rachel was already spotted on set with co-star Brian d’Arcy James.

September 25, 2014, Boston, MA /3BL Media/ – Principal photography begins today on Academy Award®-nominee Thomas McCarthy’s riveting drama SPOTLIGHT, starring Mark Ruffalo (The Normal Heart, The Kids are All Right), Michael Keaton (Birdman), Rachel McAdams (Midnight in Paris), Liev Schreiber (Ray Donovan) and Stanley Tucci (The Hunger Games). Written by McCarthy and Josh Singer (The Fifth Estate), SPOTLIGHT is a co-production of Anonymous Content and Rocklin/Faust, financed by Participant Media, and will be distributed by Open Road Films in the U.S. and by Entertainment One internationally.

Joining the cast are John Slattery (Mad Men), Brian d’Arcy James (Smash), Billy Crudup (Blood Ties) and Jamey Sheridan (Homeland). SPOTLIGHT will shoot in Boston for one week and then head to Toronto where filming will continue until the end of November.

Thomas McCarthy received an Oscar® nomination for the screenplay Up, won a BAFTA award for the script of The Station Agent which he also directed and was named best director at the Independent Spirit Awards for The Visitor.

In 2001, the Boston Globe began an investigation that would rock the city and shock the world. SPOTLIGHT tells the story of that investigation, the story of Marty Baron (Schreiber), Ben Bradlee Jr. (Slattery) and the four members of the Globe’s investigative Spotlight team – Walter Robinson (Keaton), Mike Rezendes (Ruffalo), Sacha Pfeiffer (McAdams) and Matt Carroll (James) – who would sacrifice everything to expose the Boston Archdiocese’s systemic cover up of sexual abuse of children by ordained priests. For years, whispers of scandal were ignored by society, the media, by police and by the legal system. Silenced by shame, victims of sexual abuse often became victims of suicide. For their commitment to truth, the Spotlight team received the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service.

SPOTLIGHT sheds new light on the investigation and the men and women who were integral to uncovering the story. It points to the necessity of good, local journalism, the type of journalism that has been decimated over the past fifteen years by the decline of the newspaper industry. SPOTLIGHT explores the larger themes of complicity and deference, attempting to grapple with the question of how an evil so widespread could go undetected for so long.

SPOTLIGHT’s producers are Steve Golin and Michael Sugar of Anonymous Content, and Nicole Rocklin and Blye Faust of Rocklin/Faust. Participant Media’s Jeff Skoll and Jonathan King are executive producers, with Michael Bederman, Open Road Films’ Tom Ortenberg and Peter Lawson, and Entertainment One’s Patrice Theroux and Harold van Lier. Kate Churchill is co-producer and David Mizner is associate producer.