‘Spotlight’ director Tom McCarthy, writer Josh Singer on silence of Catholic Church scandal

Many in Boston knew something was amiss, but it took an outsider to bring the focus to bear on decades of transgressions and cover-ups. In 2001, then-newly minted Boston Globe editor Marty Baron arrived from Florida, and promptly asked the Globe’s Spotlight investigative team why no one was digging into the issue of pedophile priests and their abetters in the Catholic Church.

In less than two years, the Spotlight team blew the lid off the institutionalized abuse of children within the Church as well as shone the light of guilt upon those who turned the other way.

“I think that’s the best argument for good local journalism that we could possibly make,” said Josh Singer, who co-wrote the new film “Spotlight” with director Tom McCarthy, opening Friday. Such insightful journalism, he said, is “one of the few things that can cut through this kind of deafness that you tend to see in places like Penn State and even with the Cosby affair. And how best to tell … the story of this abuse and how everyone sort of looked the other way, and no one was really innocent until these journalists did their work and stood up.”

“Spotlight” features an all-star cast that includes Oscar nominees Michael Keaton and Mark Ruffalo, Rachel McAdams, Stanley Tucci, Billy Crudup, John Slattery and Liev Schreiber as Marty Baron, the Jewish editor from Florida intent on pulling back the veil of the Church in the nation’s most Catholic city.

“We had a lot of Catholics and lapsed Catholics who [see the film] and go, ’You know, there was this [priest], and we kind of knew” that something was amiss, said Mr. McCarthy.

Added Mr. Singer, “I have a good friend, very successful, and he grew up in Dorchester. And when I told him about the story, he’s like, ’What’s the story? We all knew about it.’ And immediately we were like, that is the story.”

As equally compelling as the opportunity to tell a true behind-the-scenes classic journalism tale a la “All the President’s Men,” Mr. McCarthy and Mr. Singer said it was a chance to prop up the ailing field of newspapers in an era of downsizing and the uneasy transition to a digital medium — all while the mission for truth remains paramount.

“It just keeps reaffirming why we need journalists,” Mr. McCarthy said. “The thing I have great respect about journalists is that it’s really awkward to … ask hard questions, to be that guy. I’m a fairly confident, straightforward person, but even I don’t love doing that. And to do that for a living takes a certain kind of person.”

Mr. McCarthy enthused about his ensemble cast, all of whom, he said, were there as a passion project rather than for a paycheck.

“As [Mark] Ruffalo says, ’Sometimes we do a movie for them and a movie for us,’” Mr. McCarthy said of his cast member, who takes home far bigger checks for “Avengers” films. “They all felt like this one was for us.

“As a director it’s really a privilege to see a bunch of actors come together as such a sort of seamless ensemble and really relish the opportunity to kind of bang around in a scene. You could tell they were really digging it.”

While the co-writers stress that while no one in Boston was seemingly untouched by the culture of silence, it took many brave souls beyond the Globe newsroom to break the horror into the spotlight. The filmmakers point to the lawyer Eric Macleish, portrayed in the film by Billy Crudup.

“Just at that point where you think he’s settled all these cases in secret, Robbie [Robertson, Mr. Keaton’s character] goes to him and, [Mr. Macleish] says, ’Actually I tried to go public. I sent you guys a letter. I had 20 priests,’” Mr. Singer said. “Suddenly his character is just as gray as everyone else.

“On the one hand, there’s no one without a little dirt on their shoes. On the other hand, some of them tried in their own way and couldn’t make headway on it. I think that’s sort of the tragedy in it in some ways.”

Mr. McCarthy, who was educated by Jesuits, is a self-described “lapsed Catholic”; Mr. Singer is Jewish but says he doesn’t practice regularly. Mr. McCarthy says his family remains largely Catholic and he himself goes to church on occasion.

Of the themes of “Spotlight,” Mr. McCarthy said it ultimately comes down to choosing to speak up to do the right thing amid silence.

“Obviously that’s the job of reporters on some level,” he said, pointing to a specific scene when Mr. Keaton’s character experiences a crisis upon realizing that he too could have done more to uncover the systemic abuse. “I think when Robbie arrives there at that point in the movie, I think he’s sort of reaching, if not a personal, certainly a professional, existential kind of despair. He doesn’t have an answer [for his silence, and] it kind of compels him to do the right thing.”