Best Picture Academy Award Winning movie. Starring Michael Keaton, Mark Ruffalo, Rachel McAdams, Liev Schreiber, Brian d’Arcy James and Stanley Tucci, Spotlight tells the riveting true story of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Boston Globe investigation that would rock the city and cause a crisis in one of the world’s oldest and most trusted institutions. When the newspaper’s tenacious “Spotlight” team of reporters delves into allegations of abuse in the Catholic Church, their year-long investigation uncovers a decades-long cover-up at the highest levels of Boston’s religious, legal, and government establishment, touching off a wave of revelations around the world. Directed by Academy Award-nominee Tom McCarthy, Spotlight is a tense investigative dramatic-thriller, tracing the steps to one of the biggest cover-ups in modern times.
Information
| Rachel as: | Sacha Pfeiffer |
| Other cast: | Mark Ruffalo (Mike Rezendes), Michael Keaton (Walter ‘Robby’ Robinson), Liev Schreiber (Marty Baron), John Slattery (Ben Bradlee, Jr.), Brian d’Arcy James (Matt Carroll), Stanley Tucci (Mitchell Garabedian), Billy Crudup (Eric Macleish). |
| Alternative Title: | None |
| Directed by: | Tom McCarthy |
| Written by: | Josh Singer & Tom McCarthy |
| Production Status: | Available on DVD/Blu-Ray/Digital HD |
| World Premiere: | September 3, 2015 at Venice Film Festival |
| Theatrical Release: | Limited November 6, 2015 (US) | Wide November 20, 2015 (US) | January 29, 2016 (UK) |
| Genre: | Drama, Crime, History |
| Rated: | Rated R for some language including sexual references. |
| Distributor: | Open Road Films |
| Run time: | 128 min |
| Production budget: | $20.000.000 (Estimated) |
| Box office: | $45,055,776 (US) | $88,346,473 (World Wide) |
| Producers: | Blye Pagon Faust, Steve Golin, Nicole Rocklin, Michael Sugar, Kate Churchill (co-producer), Youtchi von Lintel (co-producer). |
| Original Music by: | Howard Shore |
| Cinematography by: | Masanobu Takayanagi |
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Production Notes
Where Ruffalo’s character focuses on legal aspects of the investigation, Rachel McAdams’ Sacha Pfeiffer specializes in interviewing the victims of clergy sex abuse. “Sacha’s a smart cookie,” says McAdams, recently lauded for her gritty turn on HBO’s “True Detective,” following crowd- pleasing performances in Sherlock Holmes and The Notebook, among others. “She and I started communicating through email, then graduated to the phone and finally I took the train from New York to Boston one weekend and spent the afternoon with her and her husband,” the actress recalls.
The marathon interview paid off. “I asked Sacha every question I could think of,” she says. “Even the tiniest things: ‘Would you wear a watch?’ Whatever it was, she’d tell me anything I wanted to know.”
McAdams’s conversations with Pfeiffer informed some of the film’s most moving sequences, as the reporter gently encourages abuse survivors to tell their stories. “I was so impressed with how Sacha honored these victims,” McAdams says. “The way she put it to me was like ‘For so many years, they had to put this trauma aside, never talked about what happened or even had it acknowledged. And here I am cold-calling them in the middle of their day out of the blue and asking them to talk about this abuse and turning their world upside-down.’ Sacha told me she didn’t feel it would be right to just do the interview, walk away, exploit that pain and disappear as quickly as she arrived. So to this day, she’s maintained relationships with a lot of the victims long after their stories were published.”
McAdams picked up on Pfeiffer’s ability to coax journalistically valuable details from her subjects. “These victims are grown men now, blue-collar men who aren’t comfortable sharing their feelings with anyone, let alone a reporter. Sacha’s an extraordinary listener and very compassionate but she also needed to ask these men to be specific in the language they used to describe their experience so that their stories wouldn’t just be distilled down to the word ‘molested.’”
McCarthy met McAdams via Skype and immediately picked up on the actresses’ down-to-earth accessibility. “There’s a directness to both Sacha and Rachel,” he says “They’re smart but never pushy, and Sacha has this ease in communicating, which Rachel has in her own right. This plays out beautifully when you see that Rachel, as Sacha, is relentless without ever being a nuisance. Rachel has a wonderful way of connecting with people.”
Unaccustomed to being on the other side of the interview process, Spotlight reporter Sacha Pfeiffer marveled at McAdams’ attention to detail during their pre-production conversations. “Rachel would ask me, ‘How long were your fingernails in 2001? Did you eat lunch in the Globe cafeteria or would you bring it from home? What kind of shoes did you wear? Would you change your clothes when you went for a walk? How much did you tell your family? What did your husband think? Did you ever get frustrated?’”
Pfeiffer, who returned to the Boston Globe in 2014 after six years with the local NPR news station, appreciated the actor’s rigorous preparation. “Even though most people who watch the movie would have no idea what I’m really like, Rachel wanted to be as authentic and historically accurate as possible because she and the rest of the cast were trying to create the inner lives of the people they’re playing. And when I saw Rachel being filmed as she walked down the steps of the Boston Public Library, I thought ‘That’s me.’”
Production Process
Production began filming in Boston in September 2014 before heading to Toronto in October 2014. The movie officially wrapped late November 2014. The cast and crew also filmed for a few days in Hamilton, Canada. To prepare for the role, Rachel interviewed and spend time with Sacha Pfeiffer, who she portrays in the movie.
Triva & Facts
Quotes from Rachel
“It’s easy to forget these events and it’s important we never do. Investigative reporting is really a dying art. These stories take years to bring together. They’re not glamorous, they’re just hard work.”
–On why Spotlight is an important story (Hello Magazine)
Quotes from Cast & Crew
“There’s a directness to both Sacha [Pfeiffer] and Rachel. They’re smart but never pushy, and Sacha has this ease in communicating, which Rachel has in her own right. This plays out beautifully when you see that Rachel, as Sacha, is relentless without ever being a nuisance. Rachel has a wonderful way of connecting with people.”
–Tom McCarthy, Director (Production Notes)
“Rachel would ask me, ‘How long were your fingernails in 2001? Did you eat lunch in the Globe cafeteria or would you bring it from home? What kind of shoes did you wear? Would you change your clothes when you went for a walk? How much did you tell your family? What did your husband think? Did you ever get frustrated? Even though most people who watch the movie would have no idea what I’m really like, Rachel wanted to be as authentic and historically accurate as possible because she and the rest of the cast were trying to create the inner lives of the people they’re playing. And when I saw Rachel being filmed as she walked down the steps of the Boston Public Library, I thought ‘That’s me.'”
–Sacha Pfeiffer, Boston Globe Reporter (Production Notes)
Critical Reception
“Rachel McAdams brings her typical resolute intelligence to Sacha Pfeiffer, another of Spotlight’s four-person team: whether quietly interviewing abuse victims or caught off guard coming face to face with one of the accused priests, she’s entirely human and it’s telling how often McCarthy chooses to resolve a scene on a look from her.”
–Jessica Kiang (The Playlist)
“McAdams imbues Pfeiffer with sensitivity and grit.”
–Justin Chang (Variety)
“Ruffalo’s two main costars, McAdams and Keaton, are both strong as well, playing veteran journalists whose whole lives appear to be their work. In the past, McAdams has been wobbly in dramatic roles, but she has the right tenor for Pfeiffer, who may be the youngest of the Spotlight team but doesn’t shrink from the challenges of confronting difficult interview subjects.”
–Tim Grierson (Screen Daily)
“McAdams also shows grit and power both in executing the professional duties of her character and in making the viewer feel how the revelations of the investigation impacts her close relationship with her religious grandmother.”
–Lindsey Bahr (Associated Press)
“Rachel McAdams gets less to do than one might hope for the movie’s only important female cast member, but she makes the most of her limited screen time, letting us see the mounting anxiety and horror behind Sacha’s indefatigably upbeat exterior.”
–Dana Stevens (Slate)
“McAdams, sharp and sympathetic, shows us how Pfeiffer draws out details from victims whose childhoods meant sucking the dick of a priest who says he’s had a bad day. This landmark film takes a clear-eyed look at the digital future and honors the one constant that journalism needs to stay alive and relevant: a fighting spirit.”
–Peter Travers (Rolling Stone)
“McAdams, in particular, spends the film doing the type of quality work she’d be doing all the time if Hollywood could consistently find worthwhile roles for her.”
–Ben Pearson (Greektyrant)
Awards & Nominations
Individual Awards
★ 2016 Santa Barbara International Film Festival as American Riviera Award
☆ 2016 Academy Awards as Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role
☆ 2016 Screen Actors Guild Awards as Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role
☆ 2016 Broadcast Film Critics Association Awards as Best Supporting Actress
☆ 2016 Online Film & Television Association as Best Supporting Actress
☆ 2016 BFCA Critics Choice Award as Best Supporting Actress
☆ 2016 IPA Satellite Awards as Best Actress in a Supporting Role
☆ 2016 People’s Choice Awards as Favorite Dramatic Movie Actress
☆ 2016 Denver Film Critics Society Awards as Best Supporting Actress
☆ 2016 Central Ohio Film Critics Association as Best Supporting Actress
☆ 2015 North Carolina Film Critics Association Awards as Best Supporting Actress
☆ 2015 Phoenix Film Critics Society Awards as Best Actress in a Supporting Role
☆ 2015 Sierra Awards Las Vegas Film Critics Society as Best Supporting Actress
☆ 2015 Phoenix Film Critics’ Society Awards as Best Supporting Actress
☆ 2015 Indiana Film Journalists Association Awards as Best Supporting Actress
☆ 2015 Awards Circuit Community Awards as Best Actress in a Supporting Role
Ensemble Awards
★ 2016 Screen Actors Guild Awards as Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture
★ 2016 BFCA Critics Choice Award as Best Acting Ensemble
★ 2016 IPA Satellite Awards as Ensemble: Motion Picture
★ 2016 Independent Spirit Awards as Robert Altman Award
★ 2016 Broadcast Film Critics Association Awards as Best Acting Ensemble
★ 2016 Gold Derby Awards as Ensemble Cast
★ 2016 Online Film & Television Association as Best Ensemble
★ 2015 Gotham Independent Film Awards as Jury Award (Best Ensemble)
★ 2015 Boston Online Film Critics Association Awards as Best Ensemble
★ 2015 Boston Society of Film Critics as Best Ensemble
★ 2015 Detroit Film Critics Society as Best Ensemble
★ 2015 Florida Film Critics Circle as Best Ensemble
★ 2015 Las Vegas Film Critics Society as Best Ensemble
★ 2015 Nevada Film Critics Society as Best Ensemble Cast
★ 2015 New York Film Critics Online Awards as Best Ensemble Cast
★ 2015 Phoenix Film Critics Society as Best Ensemble Acting
★ 2015 Southeastern Film Critics as Best Ensemble
★ 2015 Southeastern Film Critics as Best Ensemble
★ 2015 Washington D.C. Area Film Critics Association as Best Ensemble
★ 2015 Awards Circuit Community Awards as Best Cast Ensemble
☆ 2015 San Diego Film Critics Society as Best Ensemble
Best Pictrue
★ 2016 Academy Awards as Best Motion Picture of the Year
☆ 2016 Academy Awards as Best Motion Picture – Drama
☆ 2016 BAFTA Awards as Best Film
Promotional Tour
| September 5th | 2015 Telluride Film Festival (Day 2) | Photocall | Seminar |
| September 14th | 2015 Toronto International Film Festival – The Wrap Studio | Images Videos |
| September 14th | 2015 Toronto International Film Festival – Variety Studio | Images Videos |
| September 14th | 2015 Toronto International Film Festival Premiere | Arrivals | After Party Videos |
| September 15th | 2015 Toronto International Film Festival Press Junket | Images Videos |
| December 1st | 2015 Today Show | Images Videos |
| January 11th | 2016 SAG-AFTRA Foundation Conversations Screening | Images |
| January 15th | 2016 Special Screening Beverly Hills | Images |
| April 13th | 2016 Tokyo Press Conference | Images Videos |
| April 16th | 2016 Tokyo Premiere | Images Videos |
| April 30th | 2016 102nd White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner | Arrivals | After Party Videos |
Award Season 2015-2016
| November 30th | 2015 25th Annual Gotham Independent Film Awards | Arrivals | After Party Videos |
| January 10th | 2016 73rd Annual Golden Globe Awards | Arrivals | After Party Videos |
| January 10th | 2016 21st Annual Critics’ Choice Awards | Arrivals | Show | Press Videos |
| January 30th | 2016 22nd Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards | Arrivals | Show | Press Videos |
| February 5th | 2016 31st SBIFF American Riviera Award | Arrivals | Panel | Show Videos |
| February 6th | 2016 68th Annual Directors Guild Of America Awards | Arrivals | Show | Press Videos |
| February 8th | 2016 88th Annual Academy Awards Nominee Luncheon | Arrivals | Inside Videos |
| February 24th | 2016 Vanity Fair & Barneys Dinner | Arrivals | Inside Videos |
| February 27th | 2016 Film Independent Spirit Awards | Arrivals | Show | Press Videos |
| February 27th | 2016 Oscars Night Before Party & Fundraiser | Images |
| February 28th | 2016 88th Annual Academy Awards | Arrivals | Show | Press Videos |
| February 28th | 2016 Vanity Fair Oscar Party | Arrivals | Inside |
