[winterbird]

Rachel as Sacha Pfeiffer in "Spotlight" Discussion/Spoilers #3

Cast

Rachel McAdams ... Sacha Pfeiffer
Mark Ruffalo ... Michael Rezendes
Liev Schreiber ... Marty Baron
Stanley Tucci ... Mitchell Garabedian
Michael Keaton ... Walter 'Robby' Robinson
Billy Crudup ... Eric MacLeish
Brian d'Arcy James ... Matty Carroll

Original News Reports

THR: Mark Ruffalo, Michael Keaton and Stanley Tucci are all in talks to star in Tom McCarthy’s “Spotlight,” which follows the Pulitzer Prize-winning Boston Globe journalists who exposed the Catholic Church’s decades-long cover-up of child molestation in Massachusetts, multiple individuals familiar with the prestige project have told TheWrap. Ruffalo is nearing a deal to play Michael Rezendes, while Rachel McAdams is being eyed for the female lead of Sacha Pfeiffer. McAdams has an official offer, though she has not started formal negotiations yet.

Deadline - The title refers to the Spotlight Team of reporters and editors of the Boston Globe that uncovered an unimaginable city-wide conspiracy to cover-up clergy child abuse. That investigative team included then-Globe editor Marty Baron (Schreiber), Spotlight Team editor Walter “Robby” Robinson (Keaton). Reporters Michael Rezendes (Ruffalo), Sacha Pfeiffer (McAdams), and Matt Carroll spent a year interviewing victims and reviewing thousands of pages of documents and discovered years of cover-up by Catholic Church leadership. Their reporting eventually led to the resignation of Cardinal Bernard Law who had hidden years of serial abuse by other priests and opened the floodgates to other revelations of molestation and cover-ups around the world which still reverberate today. For their efforts, the Globe team won the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service in 2003. Tucci will portray attorney Mitchell Garabedian, who achieved national acclaim representing the families of abuse victims. Pic will shoot in Boston and Toronto in the fall.

External Links
IMDB - The Boston Globe Spotlight News Site

Previous threads
Rachel's Role in "Spotlight" Discussion/Spoilers #1
Sacha Pfeiffer/"Spotlight" Discussion/Spoilers #2: "We're gonna tell this story. We're gonna tell it right."
Sacha Pfeiffer/"Spotlight" Discussion/Spoilers #3: We Are Rooting For The Movie At The Oscars! (current)

[winterbird]

Latest replies:

Originally Posted by lindsey- (View Post) From Gold derby's forum: Oscar forums debate: Who really deserves Best Supporting Actress?

Originally Posted by lis7 (View Post) Roger Durling posted this picture on Instagram:

[amanda s.]

TFTNT, Lindsey! She's so cuuuuute.

[Laleb]

TFTNT, Lindsey! So excited for Rachel's and Spotlight's Oscar chances!

By the way, there was an article on The Daily Beast on The Most Embarrasing Roles of the Oscar Nominees and Rachel's role on Shotgun Love Dolls is mentioned, too.

Oscar Nominees’ Most Embarrassing Roles: Jennifer Lawrence, Leonardo DiCaprio, and More - The Daily Beast

Rachel McAdams, Shotgun Love Dolls Oscar Nominee: Spotlight Look, no disrespect to Rachel McAdams, who is clearly one of the better actresses around, but before she played the iconic Regina George, romanced RyGos in The Notebook, or starred in the excellent Canadian drama Slings and Arrows, she appeared as the lead in the MTV pilot Shotgun Love Dolls—that thankfully wasn’t picked up. In it, she stars as Beth, a teen who one day learns that she’s living in an alternate universe where she’s the newest member of an all-girls crime fighting squad. Remember that aborted TV show Fox Force Five that Uma Thurman joked about in Pulp Fiction? It’s basically that, only far less cool.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=td3qw28Jq34

[winterbird]

Rachel and Mark are expected to attend a Vanity Fair Oscar event next week:

Vanity Fair and Barneys New York Dinner Celebrating "Spotlight"– Wednesday, February 24 – Vanity Fair, Barneys New York and Open Road Films host an intimate dinner at the Chateau Marmont to benefit ProPublica, with Oscar-nominated director and co-writer Tom McCarthy, and cast members including Oscar nominees Mark Ruffalo and Rachel McAdams. https://www.looktothestars.org/news/...hollywood-2016

From The Wrap, on the Spotlight oscar campaign:

The movie: “Spotlight” The message: “We’re the important movie.” “Spotlight” came into the race backed by a small company, Open Road, which had never gone all the way with an Oscars campaign. But of the major contenders, it was the first to unveil its phase-two campaign. And considering that a key strategist on the film worked on Weinstein’s campaigns for many years, it’s no surprise that it played the “Importance” card, hardly a stretch for a film about clergy sexual abuse and cover-up in the Catholic Church, and the newspaper investigation that exposed it. The home-stretch campaign has shifted the focus of attention from the real-life reporters played by the actors in the film (who were front-and-center during the pre-nominations campaigning) to the survivors of sexual abuse. http://www.thewrap.com/oscar-ad-camp...portant-movie/

[amanda s.]

Thanks for posting, guys! Pretty excited to see she's going to be doing another event before the big show!

[Laleb]

Thanks for the updates, Lindsey. I think The Wrap's piece on the Oscar campaigns was really interesting. I love reading about campaign strategies stuff every year and this year it's way more exciting because of Rachel I'm aware that I'm biased on this but I still think what Spotlight did for the victims of the abuse scandal in the Catholic church was way more effective and contributive than what The Big Short did for the victims of the economic crisis. As for The Revenant... I don't know what to think. Fingers crossed hard for Spotlight to win the Best Picture!

I hope Rachel attends the Oscar nominees reception at the Canadian Consulate, too. That way we'll be able to see her twice next week before the Oscars. I'm beyond excited for the next week already - hopefully it's going to be so amazing for our girl!

[winterbird]

From the official twitter account:




The Satellite Awards are tonight. Rachel is up for Best Supporting Actress and Michael Keaton and Mark Ruffalo are up for Best Supporting Actor. It was already announced that they will receive the Best Ensemble award: Current Nominees | Categories | International Press Academy

[Laleb]

Thanks Lindsey. I forgot about the Satellite Awards - I hope Rachel attends the award ceremony tonight Maybe the tweet about styling her yesterday which you posted in the other thread was a styling rehearsal for tonight? But of course it could also be for the Oscars next week.

Another video about the first acting jobs of the Oscar nominees and Rachel is mentioned this time for her role in The Famous Jett Jackson
https://youtu.be/JWfFdnTUZvE

An interview on The Daily Beast with a secret Oscar voter who said he/she is considering to vote for either Spotlight or The Revenant for the Best Picture. He/she also says that most of the talk has been about Spotlight for the Best Picture. I hope that's true and Spotlight actually ends up winning the BP
An Oscar Voter’s Secret Confessions - The Daily Beast

[lis7]

Sacha Pfeiffer did an interview with Reuters and TheCelebrityCafe.com:

Reuters Interview:

'Spotlight' reporter Pfeiffer reflects on her life in film LOS ANGELES - Since premiering at the Venice film festival in September, "Spotlight", about a newspaper investigation into Catholic Church sex abuse, has scooped awards and become one of the favorites to win this year's Best Picture Oscar. Sacha Pfeiffer is one of members of The Boston Globe Spotlight team of journalists who worked on the reports that won the newspaper a Pulitzer Prize. In the film, she is portrayed by Rachel McAdams, who is in the running for an Oscar for the role. "All along the process, I'd hear from her by phone, by text, by email. Even on set sometimes, I'd get text messages saying 'Now, would you have taken notes in a notebook or by typing on a computer?'" Pfeiffer told Reuters in an interview. "So all along the way I got an inside look at how much she cared about the details, how much she wanted to be accurate and it was a window to me on to how hard really good actors work." In the film, audiences see the reporters dig up information that would eventually have a deep impact on the Catholic Church. But Pfeiffer said there are still many questions unanswered. "I think the question of why they did what they did is the hardest to answer and the one I feel we haven't answered to my satisfaction," she said. Along with the film's cast members, which include Mark Ruffalo, Michael Keaton and Stanley Tucci, Pfeiffer has been attending this season's award ceremonies. "I think it's fascinating," she said. "As a reporter, I love that my job often gives me access to worlds that other people don't get access to and I feel like I've gotten access to another fascinating world." 'Spotlight' reporter Pfeiffer reflects on her life in film | Reuters

TheCelebrityCafe.com Interview:

‘Spotlight’ journalist Sacha Pfeiffer talks Rachel McAdams and journalism [Exclusive Interview] Sacha Pfeiffer was a member of the Boston Globe Spotlight team of journalists who investigated the Catholic Church sex abuse scandal that captivated the Boston area for months and years as it unfolded. The team’s work led to the resignation of Cardinal Bernard Law, and the Catholic Church experienced a domino effect throughout the world. Stories of sexual abuse by priests started coming in from everywhere. The team’s Pulitzer Prize-winning investigation is the basis for writer/director Thomas McCarthy’s latest film Spotlight. The film has been considered by many critics as the best movie of 2015 and was nominated for six Academy Awards, including Best Picture. In the movie, Pfeiffer is portrayed by Rachel McAdams, who earned a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination for her performance. TheCelebrityCafe.com’s Daniel S. Levine got a chance to talk to Pfieffer over the phone on Feb. 11. In addition to the making of the film, we also covered the importance of investigative journalism. TheCelebrityCafe.com: Did you ever think that the investigation would become the basis for a movie, especially one as successful as Spotlight has been? Sacha Pfeiffer: Never, ever ever. In fact, it had never occurred to any of us that how we got the story could be an interesting story ever. It’s funny because someone recently said to me, “Why didn’t you guys write a screenplay and sell it?” That’s because we never thought this was interesting. When the producers approached us in 2008 or 2009, my first instinct was, “This is a very bad idea. Getting involved in Hollywood…no good can come from this. They’re just going to embarrass all of us. They’re going to exaggerate. There’s going to be ridiculous personal life drama.” And I was very wary for a long time. So, I think the fact that they made a really great movie with a lot of integrity that really authentically portrays our job and is getting really good reviews–it is a total surprise and a total joy. TCC: What surprises me is that it took so long to do the investigation, and yet the movie doesn’t feel like it skims over anything. So, is there any part of the investigation that didn’t make it in the movie that you wished did? Or something you didn’t want in the movie? SP: No, to the latter. All of the things I was afraid they would do–a ridiculous personal life drama–they didn’t do, so that’s great. I just thought they would need something to soup up our private lives. I agree with you that they did an amazing job in taking five months of research and compressing it into two hours and thoroughly covering what we did. Now one thing that didn’t get included is that we then wrote for another year and a half after we published our first story. We wrote probably 1,000 stories in the year and a half about Cardinal Law resigning, the Archdiocese on the brink of bankruptcy and delicate settlement negotiations with victims. Then, we got into the psychology of the abusers and why were there more boys than girls? We explored every aspect. So, the movie doesn’t cover that work and the people on the Globe who joined to help us do that. But I think it was a really pragmatic film-making decision to end where they did because otherwise it would have had to be a multi-part mini series. TCC: I remember when I saw it in a theater, everyone booed at the end when it said that Cardinal Law was just moved to the Vatican. Have you seen the movie with an audience? SP: Yes, and it’s amazing how many people boo and hiss at that scene. And there are some people that gasp when they show the list of cities at the end [where other cases of priest sex abuse have been reported]. Some people have applauded, like when Brian d’Arcy James [who plays Matt Carroll] throws that newspaper down on the priest’s front door…or when [Walter ‘Robby’ Robertson, Michael Keaton’s role] goes up to Billy Crudup as [lawyer] Eric MacLeish and says there’s two stories we’re going to tell… So, it’s really fascinating to see an audience’s reaction. TCC: The only time there was a laugh was at the AOL sign over the Globe building. SP: Yeah, exactly. That is so funny. They did photoshop that in, but it did help make the effect that this is the very early stage of the Internet era. TCC: So you think the film would have had the same effect if they didn’t use a lot of the real Boston locations? SP: They probably filmed about a quarter of the film in Boston, most of the exterior shots and the rest in Toronto. They built a replica Globe newsroom and a replica Spotlight office. I think they did a really great amount of sprinkling real Boston with replica Boston. TCC: Did you have any part in the process of casting Rachel McAdams? SP: No, I had no part in the casting. I just got notified that she was going to be my actor. But then I spent an extensive amount of time for her as she got ready and, even during the filming, I was with her a lot. I would get text messages in the middle of the work day, and Rachel would say, “When you were doing an interview here, would you have used your notebook or typed into a computer?” and “If you were in the office, would you wear Tennis shoes or heels? And if you were wearing heels, how short or tall would they be?” It was really amazing to watch [the actors] do their research and the questions they ask and how much they wanted to know about us…what we thought and what we felt… To me, the movie feels very authentic in terms of how we do our work. I think that’s because of how the director, the screenwriter and the cast worked so hard to get to know us and to consult with us along the way. TCC: Did director Tom McCarthy talk with you a lot before the filming? SP: Extensively. Tom McCarthy and [co-writer] Josh Singer came out multiple times over the course of a year and a half to two years. They spent hours with us individually multiple times, taping and recording. By the time the actors met us, they had been given transcripts of all our conversations with Josh and Tom so they could read all of that. And in some cases, they were given audio tapes. I left the Globe to work in public radio for seven years, so Rachel had listened to a lot of my interviews. She knew my voice, she knew my speaking style. They basically knew a lot about us before we met them. TCC: It was almost like reporting on how you were reporting! SP: Yes, exactly! Tom McCarthy basically had to become an investigative reporter to do this project. Many times, they were asking us to go back in memory about a decade, and it was hard for us to remember some details. So, Tom would have to triangulate. First, he’d have to ask me, then ask Robby and then ask Mike [Rezendes, played by Mark Ruffalo]. That way, he could keep together exactly what happened, based on our memories. TCC: Do you hope that the movie brings back attention to investigative journalism? It’s really hard to see something like what happened in Spotlight happen again because of the way the industry is today. SP: The answer to that is 100 percent. One of the reasons I love this movie is that it’s this wonderful celebration of investigative journalism. I hope it’s a reminder to people of how important it is and what we lose if we don’t have it. I honestly hope it inspires people to buy their local newspaper because that’s the revenue that supports what we do. I hope that people understand that if you don’t have groups like this to question powerful institutions, this is the kind of tragedy that can result. TCC: I was surprised by that scene where Michael Keaton’s character tells Liev Schreiber’s that the Spotlight team would spend a year just to figure out which story to cover! SP: Yeah, you can see why [investigative journalists are] an endangered species. You need an editor and a publisher with a lot of support and a lot of patience and willing to give you resources and time, even if you can’t produce for a long time. And then you just have to hope that what you’re doing is going to have an impact after all the time you spent on it. TCC: What’s it like for an outsider from Hollywood to be on the awards circuit? You’re rubbing shoulders with the others on the circuit, and there’s some pretty big A-listers around this year. SP: [McAdams] has been very gracious and generous. She’s invited me as her guest to multiple events. I went to the Screen Actors Guild Awards, the Critics’ Choice, Golden Globes… For me as a reporter, it’s totally fascinating, right? It’s why I love my job. I have a job that gives me access to fascinating people and fascinating places that a lot of other people never get to see. I feel like I attend all these events as an observer. I feel more like an observer than a participant. I get to sit back and get an inside look at the fascinating world of Hollywood. TCC: One last thing. Can you talk about the fellowship the Globe is doing with the film’s producers? SP: This is fantastic. They’re putting $100,000 towards it, and we’re hoping it will be an annual thing. It’s a chance to let an investigative reporter or an investigative reporting team come to the Globe, work here with our Spotlight team reporters on an investigative project. Again, it’s our attempt to make people realize how important investigative reporting is to try and make sure it has resources, and applications are due at the end of February. It’s a great thing. The movie studio and its partners put up the money! [If you are interested in the Fellowship, applications are open through Monday, Feb. 29. Spotlight is now in theaters and comes out on DVD/Blu-ray on Feb. 23.] ‘Spotlight’ journalist Sacha Pfeiffer talks Rachel McAdams and journalism [Exclusive Interview] | TheCelebrityCafe.com

[Laleb]

The piece on Rachel in EW's Oscar 2016 Guide:

Rachel McAdams - Oscars 2016 - Your Complete Guide to the Academy Award Nominees - EW.com

Rachel McAdams BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS Starring in: Spotlight Age: 37 Oscar Past: 0 Noms, 0 Wins Role Call: Sacha Pfeiffer, a writer for The Boston Globe whose investigation into the Catholic Church child-abuse scandal unearths her complicated relationship to her family religion Rachel McAdams plays a woman who is equal parts determined journalist and loyal granddaughter of a devout Catholic. Her portrayal of reporter Sacha Pfeiffer was so effective at adding emotional depth to a complex story of reporters striving to unearth a cover-up in the church, that director Tom McCarthy and his coscreenwriter Josh Singer just kept adding more lines and scenes for her while they were shooting. "She was so good at taking our last-minute rewrites and turning them into gold," Singer says. "I kept saying to her, 'The problem is that you give us no incentive to stop doing this because you're so good at it.' Everything we threw at her, she literally could learn stuff within minutes." Those moments turned out to be some of the most affecting in the film, says her costar Michael Keaton. "The scenes that always get me the most are the ones with Rachel, where she hasn't told her grandmother yet and she knows her grandmother is going to find out all this information from the church, knowing how much that is going to hurt," he says. "That's a huge thing, and those are the scenes that — without Rachel saying a word — move me the most."

I'm not sure if I remember reading Keaton's quote about Rachel's before? But I thought it was really nice

[winterbird]

Thanks for all the articles guys Less than a week now until the Oscars!

The movie won 4 Satellite awards yesterday, including Best Picture and Best Ensemble: Spotlight | Projects | International Press Academy

[amanda s.]

Thanks for posting, guys! I am LOVING how very much everyone adores her and her performance.

[winterbird]

The Blu-Ray/DVD/On Demand is available of the movie starting today in the US

THR made a Oscar Parties Guide, hopefully Rachel will show up for a few of these: Oscar Parties 2016: The Complete Guide - Hollywood Reporter

[Laleb]

Wow so many parties! I think she'll at least attend the WME party on Friday right? Her name is mentioned as the nominees of the agency this year, she might be expected to attend. It says Anonymous Content bosses are going to hold a party on Saturday. She might attend that one, too. But maybe not, I guess when you're an Oscar nominee, you have to get as much sleep and rest as possible on the last day before the Oscars!

Oscar voting closes today at 5 pm PT. Only a few hours left. Here's a last minute article on Hollywood Elsewhere - he says he's been hearing Spotlight for the Best Picture from most of the Academy members he's talked to: Old White Lefties Are in Spotlight's Corner - A Possibly Signficant Factor in Best Picture Showdown - Hollywood Elsewhere

I hope all these predictions and articles turn out to be right on Sunday night