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 To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices