When Hollywood Tells The Truth - with the directors of Spotlight, The Staircase, Reality, and The Investigation

Summary

Question Everything – “When Hollywood Tells The Truth” Host: Brian Reed | Date: December 25, 2025

---

Episode Overview

On this episode of Question Everything, Brian Reed brings together four acclaimed directors—Tom McCarthy (Spotlight), Antonio Campos (The Staircase), Tina Satter (Reality), and Tobias Lindholm (The Investigation)—to explore the intersection of investigative journalism and dramatic filmmaking. The panel discusses the complexities of transforming true stories into narrative film or television, the ethical boundaries of portraying real events and people, and the pursuit of truth within fiction. The conversation delves into the directors’ research processes, their relationships with the real people behind their stories, and the role of emotion and authenticity in bringing journalism to the screen.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Draw of Real Stories for Filmmakers

• Antonio Campos on Adapting True Crime
  • Not every true crime story calls for dramatization; some are best left as articles or documentaries.
  • “There’s certain times when these things spark and you’re like, oh, there’s something here that inspires—that could benefit from dramatization, that creative liberties could get you further, potentially closer to the truth than what a documentary could.” (06:24, Antonio Campos)
• The Layers of the Real Story in The Staircase
  • Discovery that one of the French documentary's editors fell in love with the murder suspect, Michael Peterson, made the narrative more complex and cinematic.
  • Campos insisted on meeting real people involved for authenticity: “Well the truth is always stranger than fiction.” (09:37, Antonio Campos)

Ethical and Emotional Challenges in Dramatizing Real Lives

• Portraying Real People and Dealing with Fallout
  • Some participants in real events (e.g., Sophie, the editor) had complicated or upset reactions to their portrayals.
  • Campos admits: “You’re dealing with real people and in dramatizing it, you have to kind of get to sort of the essence of it.” (11:33, Antonio Campos)
• Tina Satter on Reality Winner and Verbatim Storytelling
  • Satter sourced her film’s script from the FBI interrogation transcript of Reality Winner, preserving every word and cough: “We treated—it was like Shakespeare. Like, it’s all on the page. What does it tell us, like, half sentence by half sentence?” (16:06, Tina Satter)
  • Satter’s conversations with Reality Winner, and Winner’s family's reaction, reinforced the power of letting someone’s actual words stand: “There is this power in showing our daughter in her words, not pushing an agenda too much.” (19:18, Tina Satter)

The Search for Truth: Research and Accuracy

• Tobias Lindholm on The Investigation
  • Chose to reject sensationalism common in press coverage of the Copenhagen submarine case. Sought the unreported, procedural aspects.
  • “What can I leave out? That story was overtold in Scandinavian press… I felt polluted… entertained by these details and the speculation of a case that had just happened and a young woman had lost her life.” (20:13, Tobias Lindholm)
  • Met with the victim’s parents, who wanted their daughter remembered as a journalist, not a victim: “Their daughter Kim should be remembered as a journalist and not as a victim of a sexual crime. That made total sense to me as a father.” (24:58, Tobias Lindholm)
• Extremely Specific Recreation for Authenticity
  • Lindholm used the real police, detectives, dogs, and boats in the film to precisely reconstruct events, both as a shield against accusations of exploitation and as a storytelling approach:
  • “All the divers, the dogs, the exact location—because I insisted, I spent a tenth of the budget to build a submarine with the right weight.” (26:21, Tobias Lindholm)

Navigating Fact and Drama

• Blending Factual Constraints with Creative Process
  • Tom McCarthy: Some writers thrive in the world of real stories, others in pure fiction. “Some people love it and some… The constraints are too much or it’s too wide open.” (29:11, Tom McCarthy)
• Role of Imagination
  • Lindholm shares his discomfort with ‘pure’ invention: “I realized very early on in my life that I was not a fan of my own imagination...” (29:42, Tobias Lindholm)

Accidental Discoveries and Accountability

• Uncovering New Truths While Dramatizing
  • McCarthy describes finding evidence during Spotlight’s research that the Boston Globe had previously buried a story on abuse: “And we left. And Josh is like, I’m going to the Globe. … and he found it.” (39:53, Tom McCarthy)
  • The emotional difficulty of confronting the real-life reporters with these findings:
    • “Suddenly we’re like, this isn’t good. This doesn’t read well.” (40:53, Tom McCarthy)

Why Movies Can Transcend Journalism

• Emotional Impact and Transportation
  • Satter notes the unique ability of narrative to instill understanding and emotional connection in a way that journalism sometimes can’t achieve:
    • “Until I saw Spotlight… I could feel it in my molecules… But that movie made me understand and then feel a kind of rage that was actually really upsetting to finally fully feel emotionally...” (43:09, Tina Satter)
  • McCarthy: “It seems like there’s a chance with narratives to actually transport people to a place in time… you’re gonna breathe it, you’re gonna touch it and you’re gonna feel it.” (43:24, Tom McCarthy)

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On dramatizing the unresolvable:
  “At some point, I realized, oh, I’m not going to figure it out. And it’s okay. And it’s okay to sort of live in this space of not figuring out.” (09:09, Antonio Campos)
• On the difference between film and journalism:
  “You can take an audience—like, okay, you know the story, now I’m gonna put you in it. Now you’re gonna breathe it.” (43:24, Tom McCarthy)
• On scripts from transcripts:
  “Not a redaction, not a cough… We treated—it was like Shakespeare.” (16:06, Tina Satter)
• Ethical anxiety in true crime storytelling:
  “I became very obsessed with details… I would hire the exact police officers and dogs…” (25:11, Tobias Lindholm)
• On regret and fictional liberties:
  “Maybe an ocean that looked like the Indian Ocean could have been all right.” (32:15, Tobias Lindholm, after a dangerous shoot)

---

Timestamps for Key Segments

• 05:12 – Introduction to the roundtable, directors introduce their connection to journalism and film
• 06:24 – Campos describes how and why he adapted The Staircase
• 12:10 – Tina Satter on discovering Reality Winner’s story and using the FBI transcript
• 17:04 – Tom McCarthy and the power of found language in transcripts
• 20:17 – Lindholm on the aftermath and ethics of the Copenhagen submarine murder case
• 24:12 – Meeting with the victim's parents and the quest for responsible storytelling
• 26:29 – Lindholm discusses the drive for real-world accuracy in production
• 28:16 – Philosophical discussion about using real facts as creative constraints
• 32:15 – Lindholm recounts a risky commitment to authenticity during filming
• 35:24 – Tom McCarthy details the challenge in turning Spotlight into a film
• 39:51 – Discovery of a buried story in Globe archives during Spotlight’s research
• 43:09 – Satter on the unique emotional power of narrative film versus journalism
• 43:24 – McCarthy: The transportive capacity of film for the audience

---

Conclusion

This episode is a masterclass in the tensions and kinships between journalism and dramatic storytelling. Each filmmaker details their meticulous, and sometimes nerve-wracking, research process, their ethical anguish about real-life subjects, and why dramatizing facts can make audiences feel truths that journalism alone cannot always convey. For listeners fascinated by the power—and the perils—of adapting true stories, this is essential listening.

---

Transcript

[Brian Reed]

We've been working with this great new sponsor here at Question Everything. It's called Plaud. That's P as in pancake. P, L, A, U, D, Plod. It's this nifty, tiny AI assistant and notetaker device that you can turn on.

[Interviewer / Host]

And it listens to any conversation you're.

[Brian Reed]

Having and then uses AI to create, to do lists or action items or to synthesize different things. We've actually turned the word plodding into a verb around the office. So we'll start a meeting and I'll say, I'm gonna Plaud. This really just frees your brain from note taking, remembering menial things. If you're interested, go check out Plaud. P L, A U D A I. And if you get one, use the special code question. It helps out the show. We happen to have a release day on Christmas. And I thought, you know what a lot of people might be doing today around this time? Rewatching a movie that you've seen, I don't know, a dozen times, two dozen times. I know that's probably what I'll end up doing with my family. For many years it was Lord of the Rings. I don't know what it will be. This year I've been revisiting Home Alone with My five Year Old, which has been awesome, frankly. And so I thought, you know what? It's a good day to revisit one of my favorite Question Everything episodes we've done. Because it's about movies. And really a question I obsess over. How do you tell a story that lasts? How do you make a story that cuts through all the noise we're bombarded with every day and has a real impact on people's lives. To get into this, we have four Hollywood directors who we brought together on a chilly night last year around this time at the Bibber and Bell wine shop in New York. And if you're wondering why I was chumming around with Hollywood directors on a show about journalism, decent question. It's because these filmmakers, specifically, they. They all did something unusual. They used reporting to make their movies and TV shows. And not just in like a based on a true story kind of way, but in a way that really strikes me as a kind of investigative journalism. They interview people, dig up documents, police files, transcripts, archival footage. They chase down details the way I do as a reporter. And then they turn it into drama for the big or small screen. In some cases, these directors have been more thorough than journalists who are working under tight deadlines. One of Them uncovered a genuine scoop while making his film. Another built his show partly as a rebuttal to bad reporting by journalists that had distorted the truth. And it's just interesting. All these directors have had to straddle this very fine line. How do you tell a true story as a work of fiction. Fiction. And still stay faithful to the underlying facts? And how far should you go as a director making fiction to stay true to those facts? I had such a blast in this conversation. We have Tom McCarthy, who directed the Academy Award winning Spotlight. Antonio Campos, who did the HBO adaptation of the documentary the Staircase. Tina Satter, who directed Sydney Sweeney in the excellent movie Reality, about reality winner, who we've also had on our show before. And Danish filmmaker TV Tobias Lindholm, whose series the Investigation on HBO just wrecked me. This is question everything from placement theory and kcrw. I'm Brian Reed. Merry Christmas. Stick around. Okay, so I've been telling you about this sponsor we're working with, Plaud. That's P as in pancake. P, L, A U, D. It's this nifty, tiny AI assistant and notetaker device.

[Interviewer / Host]

Though it's much more than that.

[Brian Reed]

You turn it on, it can record a meeting, interview, or just you talking.

[Interviewer / Host]

To it and dumping the contents of.

[Brian Reed]

Your brain into it. Just in the last few weeks, I've been introducing it to my wife. And I shit you not just this morning.

[Interviewer / Host]

She and I were just catching up.

[Brian Reed]

After dropping our kid off at school about things we have to get done this week. We have a really busy week. And she said, hey, can you plod this? It just showed like, actually, this is.

[Interviewer / Host]

Becoming part of our life.

[Brian Reed]

And it's actually really useful. Check out Plaudplaud AI. If you buy one, please use the special code. Question.

[Antonio Campos]

Thank you.

[Brian Reed]

It's early December.

[Interviewer / Host]

The wine shop just made its last sale for the night and closed up. I'm getting the small bar ready with our executive producer, Robin Simeon. And our guests start wandering in from the cold.

[Antonio Campos]

Introduce yourself.

[Tobias Lindholm]

My name is Tobias Lindholm.

[Interviewer / Host]

Tobias Lindholm, who created the HBO show the Investigation. He's the one with the Danish accent.

[Tobias Lindholm]

I'm from Copenhagen, Denmark.

[Interviewer / Host]

Tina Satter, a longtime theater director in New York. I've seen her plays over the years. Who recently directed her first feature film, reality. Also, Tom McCarthy, who won an Oscar for his movie Spotlight. And lastly, Antonio Campos.

[Antonio Campos]

I used to live right across the street in that building.

[Robin Simeon]

You did.

[Antonio Campos]

This is a great block.

[Interviewer / Host]

We're gonna play edited excerpts from our conversation. And you'll hear from Antonio first. Antonio made the fictionalized HBO series the.

[Brian Reed]

Staircase, which is about the French documentary series the Staircase.

[Interviewer / Host]

The HBO show is really compelling, not only because he gets incredible actors like Colin Firth and Toni Collette and Juliet Binoche to play the real people involved in the case, but because Antonio uses.

[Brian Reed]

The HBO show to go beyond just.

[Interviewer / Host]

Reenacting what's in the documentary.

[Brian Reed]

He actually dramatizes the behind the scenes story of the making of the documentary.

[Antonio Campos]

Cheers.

[Tom McCarthy]

French whiskey.

[Interviewer / Host]

Cheers everybody. Thank you all for being here.

[Tobias Lindholm]

Such a pleasure.

[Interviewer / Host]

I really appreciate it on this cold night.

[Brian Reed]

Cheers.

[Antonio Campos]

Fine.

[Interviewer / Host]

Cheers.

[Tobias Lindholm]

Cheers.

[Interviewer / Host]

So I gathered you all here today because this is a show about journalism and I love all your guys work and you all in one way or another draw on journalism for your work. And so I was hoping we could talk about it. To start, I'm just curious, when you see a piece of reporting a story or something true in the world, like how do you know? Like, oh, that's something that could be dramatized or that I feel drawn to dramatize, like, I don't know, Antonio, the Staircase was like a canonical documentary and you saw it and thought, I could do that again and add something like, how did you come to that?

[Antonio Campos]

Well, one, I've always been fascinated by true crime and I love reading true crime. But majority of time I don't think this needs to be anything but a great article or a great documentary or docuseries. But there's certain times when these things spark and you're like, oh, there's something here that inspires that, that could benefit from dramatization, that creative liberties could get you further, potentially closer to the truth than what a documentary could. That's how at least I felt.

[Robin Simeon]

Will you just say like a quick summary of what the Staircase is?

[Antonio Campos]

Yeah. So the Staircase is a documentary, an eight part docu series made in 2004 about a murder trial in Durham, North Carolina where a rich novelist, a well known novelist in the community, figure in the community, was accused of killing his wife. Michael Peterson is the name of the writer. He claimed that he found her dead at the bottom of the stairs. And the police claim that he killed her, that he beat her to death. And so then what happened was a documentary film crew from France came and they documented the entire case and followed him and had total Access. This is 2008. I had just made my first feature and this producer sent me this documentary, the Staircase. And the producer, when I got to his office said, well, look, there's three things you should know. He said, one the producer of the documentary and the director don't agree about what happened, whether or not Michael Peterson was guilty. The second thing you should know is that there's a lot more that happened that isn't in the documentary. Okay. And the third thing you should note is that the editor of the documentary fell in love with Michael Peterson and eventually left her family for Michael Peterson and then dedicated her life to getting him. I was like, okay, well, this is just layers and layers and layers. All of that sort of made it more interesting.

[Interviewer / Host]

And when you were told that the editor of the documentary fell in love with Michael Peterson, the convicted murderer, ultimately. Right. What did you ask next? Like, what was your next question?

[Antonio Campos]

Well, I think. I think my question was like, can I meet her? So what? Sophie was one of the editors on the documentary, and she started a communication with Michael.

[Tom McCarthy]

She only knew him by cutting.

[Antonio Campos]

She only knew him by the footage. She had never met him until she went to visit him in prison.

[Tobias Lindholm]

Did she fall in love with him already in.

[Antonio Campos]

Well, this is a point of contention. Whether or not she had feelings for him during the editing is sort of up for debate. What we do know is that she eventually wrote to him and started communicating with him, and eventually she went from France to go visit him, and at that point, he was in prison.

[Robin Simeon]

Did you talk to her?

[Antonio Campos]

Yes.

[Tom McCarthy]

Yeah.

[Interviewer / Host]

And does she say that the relationships started after she was actually working on the project or.

[Antonio Campos]

Yes. I was very adamant about meeting the filmmakers. And then once I met them, I was like, I need to meet Sophie, the editor. And. And then once that happened, I was like, okay, like, this is. This is like, their character.

[Interviewer / Host]

Why do you need to meet them? Like, you know, if you're fictionalizing something, like, you wouldn't take it for granted that you have to, I guess.

[Antonio Campos]

Well, the truth is always stranger than fiction. I mean, look, the reality is, this series took me 12 years to make. From that 2008 to when I was actually making this was 12 years. And in that time, all this stuff had happened. So I didn't know where the journey was going to take me. And I started the process and I said, you know what's going to happen? I'm going to figure this out. I'm going to use computers and cgi, and I'm going to recreate this thing and build a set. And I. At some point, like four or five years in, I was like, this doesn't matter. Like, I can't figure this out. I was like this because I did. I. At some point, I realized, oh, I'M not going to figure it out. And it's okay. And it's okay to sort of live in this space of not figuring out, but the processes that you're trying to figure it out. And why is everybody trying to figure out why is it that Michael Peterson is such a great, perfect suspect? And it's like that was a more interesting space to play in and sort of like the possibilities were more interesting to me than the final answer.

[Tobias Lindholm]

But you did something, and let me ask you about that because you did something different often. What you. With a sensational story, you want to go in and investigate and find that missing link. It's not like you were trying to do that. It was more like you were trying to show me that all these different ways could be possible. It's almost like you took a step back and made a documentary about the documentary that was being made.

[Brian Reed]

Yeah.

[Tobias Lindholm]

And you know, I was in love with Michael Peterson. I was drawn to this character.

[Antonio Campos]

Yeah.

[Interviewer / Host]

She started writing letters.

[Tina Satter]

Yeah.

[Interviewer / Host]

So how did the real life Sophie feel about her portrayal? Can you say?

[Antonio Campos]

Yeah, it's complicated. I. She had a complicated reaction to it. Yeah. She was mad. Yeah, she was.

[Interviewer / Host]

Is it important? Like. Like, did you feel like I want them to like it? Cuz as a reporter, like I sometimes want someone to like it, but that's not always in line with what I'm doing, you know?

[Antonio Campos]

I think so. I think I did. I think I did. I do. But this is sort of the trickiest part because you're dealing with real people and in dramatizing it, you have to kind of get to this sort of the essence of it.

[Tina Satter]

In the case of the movie, I did Reality with Reality Winner herself, who's being portrayed. I wasn't able to communicate with her for a long time because she was in prison.

[Interviewer / Host]

This is Tina Satter. Tina made a play that she then turned into a movie last year starring Sydney Sweeney about Reality Winner.

[Brian Reed]

Reality Winner, if you've not heard of her, is the name of a real person. Reality was a translator for the National Security agency.

[Interviewer / Host]

After the 2016 presidential election, when reality was 25 years old, she got worried that Americans would were maybe being misled about the extent of Russian interference that had happened in the previous presidential election. Reality printed out a classified government report.

[Brian Reed]

Which proved there were Russian cyber attacks.

[Interviewer / Host]

On American voting software. And then she mailed it anonymously to the news site the Intercept. They reported on it. And then Reality Winner was caught by the FBI.

[Brian Reed]

She was interrogated at her home in.

[Interviewer / Host]

Texas by two agents charged under The.

[Brian Reed]

Espionage act and sentenced to more than.

[Interviewer / Host]

Five years in prison.

[Brian Reed]

It was the longest sentence ever given.

[Interviewer / Host]

To a source for sharing classified information with a news outlet. The FBA got wind of it and was able to identify her.

[Tina Satter]

Yes, because anything printed at the NSA has a very specific code at the top. She sent actual hard copy papers into the mail to them for their fact checking. They called up a former FBI guy and was like, does this look real? And that guy was like, it looks real. And also, I'm gonna share it with actual FBI people. And then In June of 2017, she was visited by the FBI at her home. And they recorded this interrogation. And so my movie is like, verbatim that. Using that dialogue to this hour and a half in her afternoon.

[Interviewer / Host]

How did you, like, happen to randomly read an FBI interrogation of Reality Winner?

[Tina Satter]

Reality Winner does the thing she does in the movie. In June 2017, I barely paid attention to that news story, as I think many people did not either. And then six months later, New York magazine had a story in it called America's Biggest Terrorist has a Pikachu Bedspread. And I was like, huh? And I was like, you had me a Pikachu.

[Brian Reed]

I'm.

[Tina Satter]

And then, so funny.

[Interviewer / Host]

Rob and I were.

[Antonio Campos]

Detail on the show, Rob and I.

[Interviewer / Host]

Were talking about this. Robin was like, I want to know if the Pikachu bedspread is real.

[Robin Simeon]

Literally yesterday, I was like, I really.

[Interviewer / Host]

I think it's on my list of questions right here.

[Tina Satter]

So the tiniest shot number I had seen, the little. She was barely covered. Right? And that's a whole other interesting story about news. But there are photos of her with this in New York. I'm reading it online in New York Magazine, and I was like, wait, there. This young woman, like, the details of her life that are in there. Like, she speaks three languages, but then she does yoga. But then she's like this young, very young woman. I was, like, obsessively reading this, just like, wow, this is super fascinating. But somewhere in there, there was, like, a hyperlink that was like, read about the day Reality was visited at her home by the FBI. I click that link. And that took you to Politico, who had this, like, somehow crookedly copied PDF. I mean, it has a stamp on the top of it. Reality Winner, verbatim transcription. Every page of this thing was like this. I couldn't believe it. And I could feel, like, this simmering tension in it, like from the. Hey, hello. Cause you read it knowing that this young woman's in prison. So to me, I'M like, when do they get her? Cause, like, she's clearly obfuscating. And I totally had an instinct that the language stood as a play. And for months, that was what I had printed out as the script when I was doing it as a play.

[Interviewer / Host]

But at that point, how long is the raw transcript? How long is it versus how long?

[Tina Satter]

81 pages.

[Brian Reed]

Okay.

[Tina Satter]

Yeah.

[Interviewer / Host]

What does that translate to, like, lengthwise for a play?

[Tina Satter]

It's like 70 minutes. I had not cut anything when I did it on stage.

[Interviewer / Host]

Not a word. Not a word.

[Tina Satter]

Not a redaction, not a cough. We treated. It was like Shakespeare. Like, it's all on the page. Do you know what I mean? Like, what does it tell us? Like, half sentence by half sentence? I had written the things before, so it was like you wanted to change it if it sounded horrible. You know what I mean? But it was this amazing constraint. Like, we kind of have to figure out what it means.

[Interviewer / Host]

I have that experience all the time when I'm reading like. Like transcripts or, like, 911 calls that I'll get, like, released through a FOIA or something. I'm always struck by just how much subtext there is to play with, like, in those. When you're making even documentary work, you know, I don't know. It's one of the beautiful things about, you know, raw material.

[Tom McCarthy]

It's like a mystery. There's, like, a mystery and what's being said underneath it. And what it's. What is exciting about seeing it dramatized, I think, is to see it come to life. Whenever I read transcripts, like, almost as a writer, I'm almost envious of how good the tone of the language is.

[Tina Satter]

Right.

[Tom McCarthy]

Because people never talk as well as we write them.

[Brian Reed]

You know what I mean?

[Tobias Lindholm]

I know.

[Tom McCarthy]

It's so, you know, and so even if we're not Aaron Sorkin and giving them verbal superpowers, like, we're all making it a little better, right? So it's like when I read a transcript, I'm like, oh, this is so, so great.

[Interviewer / Host]

And so were you always just like, this is going to be verbatim? Was there ever a moment where you thought, I'm going to use parts of this. I'm going to use it as inspiration. I'm going to edit it in some way.

[Tina Satter]

Really early on, it felt like the integrity of this project, because it's weird and dry, like, was that it had to be. This is what happened in that room that day. Like, the surreality of it was already baked, was there. For anyone who's seen it. There's a scene on the lawn. I don't know a third into it. If you're reality, you probably think, what is happening now? But they just start chit chatting to her about working out and CrossFit.

[Brian Reed]

So weird.

[Tina Satter]

It's almost like you're just at a barbecue chatting with your friends, with your dad. And so if you kept the transcript, screenplay, that's like seven pages of screenplay. You have to keep some of that banality, you know, like it has to drift. Cause I never wanted to change within a line. Do you know what I mean? Cause that would feel like I was then directing the story.

[Interviewer / Host]

What did you learn? So you did the play without talking to reality?

[Brian Reed]

Yeah.

[Interviewer / Host]

But then you started talking to her and making the movie.

[Tina Satter]

Yes, but when we went to make the movie, Sydney Sweeney, who plays reality, wanted to speak to reality. And so Sid and her had these private conversations throughout. And like, Sidney would told me some of it, but I didn't even want to press her. I don't know, I wanted it also to be her private work. But then we would speak on the phone.

[Interviewer / Host]

What were your questions and what did you learn and how did it change the movie?

[Tina Satter]

They were detail. I only wanted to ask her detail questions. Not like, what did it feel like for you?

[Brian Reed]

Why?

[Tina Satter]

Because I didn't want it to be too informed. To push a certain agenda that she or her family felt. I actually thought showing it most straightforwardly was the strongest way, frankly, for reality. And what I felt was complicated about what happened to her to be presented.

[Interviewer / Host]

And they knew the premise. They knew you were doing it verbatim for the transcript.

[Tina Satter]

Because the family came to the very first night we ever did the play. You know, I learned after how nervous, understandably nervous they were. But then when they saw it, they were actually like, okay. There is this power in showing our daughter in her words, not pushing an agenda too much.

[Interviewer / Host]

Totally, totally.

[Tom McCarthy]

Everybody.

[Interviewer / Host]

How's everybody doing on drinks? Do you need a little more water?

[Tina Satter]

I might have a little more.

[Interviewer / Host]

Bs. Did you use transcripts and what materials did you use to make the investigation? Like, did you have the whole case file?

[Tobias Lindholm]

Yeah, I had access to it. In that case, for me it was like, what details? How many details can I leave out? So it's like that story was overtold in Scandinavian press. This murder case, it was still covered.

[Interviewer / Host]

You were going into, well, trodden territory, basically.

[Tobias Lindholm]

So I was like, what can I leave out?

[Interviewer / Host]

Give the gist for anybody who hasn't seen seen it.

[Tobias Lindholm]

So a Swedish female journalist Named Kinval was brought, lived in Copenhagen and was as a journalist going to do an interview with this self proclaimed scientist who had built his own submarine like, like a hobby project. And she was going to sail out with him and he ended up killing her on that trip out. And it became probably the most covered murder in Denmark history. It was everywhere. And it was the classical true crime angle from all journalists covering it. Everybody got obsessed with this genius who had built a submarine and now he was also a sexual predator. We were all, I guess, absorbed with this story for a couple of days. And then when it just continued and it just keep growing, like every day, breaking news, it was all over. I decided to not really look at it because I felt polluted. I felt like how dirty it was to sit there and be entertained by these details and the speculation of a case that had just happened and a young woman had lost her life. And so later I got to meet the chief investigator and then he told me some very specific details, not about the crime, but about the solving of the crime, about the investigation. And I realized that where were they?

[Brian Reed]

Where were they?

[Tobias Lindholm]

Stuff like they used special trained dogs to sniff bodies that were on the bottom of the ocean. Then the scent would travel through water, up through the surface. That gas would be caught by a dog's nose. It would bark and then they would dive down and find the evidence. The dog is in a boat, in like in a small, small rowing boat with a small engine. Yeah. And, and it's just in front and it's just waiting and they just sail around.

[Tom McCarthy]

We're all kind of giggling at this image right now, you know that it.

[Tobias Lindholm]

Was like, it was the opening of episode four, because it's such a beautiful ep.

[Tom McCarthy]

Incredible.

[Tobias Lindholm]

And so when he started to tell me about these scientific, almost like Sherlock Holmes crazy things, I was overwhelmed with, like, why haven't we told this story? Like, right, who cares about a sexual predator? Right.

[Interviewer / Host]

So none of that had been told, like publicly. Nothing.

[Tobias Lindholm]

Yeah, they had all just been obsessed with, oh, how many has he killed? Has he done it before?

[Antonio Campos]

The whole.

[Robin Simeon]

And I was like, how about about the woman? Was, was the reporting about the woman or was it all mostly just about him?

[Tobias Lindholm]

She was, to begin with, only portrayed as the victim of this crime. Okay, so it was like the three.

[Robin Simeon]

Dimensional, this is who she was.

[Tina Satter]

And what.

[Tobias Lindholm]

And then. Exactly. And then speculation started. Was she pervertedly sexually active? Was she. They were trying to like make sense of. And of course she wasn't. And of course she was just there to do A very interesting piece that she was going to do for an American magazine, and she was going to move to China the next day with her boyfriend and live as a journalist in China. And so two people sail out, only one come back. He has no real explanation to what happened to his guest. So they had a suspect of a crime and they arrested him, but they didn't have a crime yet. So it's like the opposite of a normal police case. It was, here comes in a guy who clearly has done something, but nobody knows what it is.

[Interviewer / Host]

It's like, how done it? Basically, it's like, how done it, rather than who done it or what done.

[Tobias Lindholm]

It or, you know. So it opened up all these other questions.

[Interviewer / Host]

That is how Sherlock Holmes is. If you read it, it isn't that you're going with Sherlock Holmes through his investigation to discover it. It's like, there's a murder. He goes away and figures it out. He comes back and tells Watson how he figured it out, basically. Like, yours is kind of like that.

[Tobias Lindholm]

I agree. I wasn't fascinated with that structure of, like, a Sherlock Holmes story. And so these details became the structure of, like, I just tried to then stay loyal to the police work. So I talked to the police officer and I went home and I was like, I promised my son not to touch this story because I hated the way it had been covered. And then I called him and I said, if I'm ever going to do this, you need to introduce me to her parents.

[Interviewer / Host]

What was that meeting like?

[Tobias Lindholm]

I was terrified.

[Robin Simeon]

What were you terrified about?

[Tobias Lindholm]

It was like I knew that there was potentially something wrong with me coming to their garden and asking them for permission to do something that I would make money from and make an entertainment piece of true crime about their lives. Catastrophe. And they were extremely open and kind and very honest about their feelings. But they had one simple mission, which was that their daughter Kim, should be remembered as a journalist and not as a victim of a sexual crime. And that made total sense to me as a father.

[Interviewer / Host]

And they told you that on your first.

[Tobias Lindholm]

They told me that that was what they had been fighting with the Danish press about, like, trying to change the narrative. But driving home from that first meeting, I wasn't sure that I could do it because there was something in it where I felt like a parasite and I had to find a way out of that to do it.

[Interviewer / Host]

You and I have talked about this once before, and I got the sense that it really took a toll. Like the obligation to the responsibility took.

[Tobias Lindholm]

A toll on you when it Was over. I, for a while thought I probably shouldn't have done it. Like my hair was gray. I took it very serious, as I should, but probably too serious.

[Antonio Campos]

But it's funny too.

[Tom McCarthy]

What do you mean by that?

[Tobias Lindholm]

I mean I am a storyteller and I should live up to that responsibility. And I didn't kill their daughter. I didn't. I didn't take part in this. And I was too afraid of.

[Tom McCarthy]

Getting it wrong.

[Tobias Lindholm]

Getting it wrong and doing what I didn't like the press was doing in the breaking news. Sensationalism. I became very obsessed with details in this. So I would. I would hire the exact police officers and dogs to be in the movie. So the dogs that we see, they're all real. The boat that picks up the submarine from the bottom of the ocean is the exact boat with the exact crew that picked up the real one. All the divers that was doing it was the guys that was doing it that day.

[Antonio Campos]

That's great.

[Tobias Lindholm]

And it is the exact location.

[Interviewer / Host]

What was your feeling of why that had to be that way? Like the verisimilitude. Why such a commitment to that?

[Tobias Lindholm]

I think it became my. To begin with, it became my excuse that it was all right to do this, like almost religiously, to just be like all these press that I didn't like, got it wrong because they got obsessed with all this. Now I'm going to do it, like where I don't add stuff. I just show it exactly as it was. I'm not. And it felt like necessary to explain myself to myself why I was doing it.

[Brian Reed]

Yeah.

[Interviewer / Host]

Was that like about your own, I guess, anxiety about doing the project or did it serve the project in some way?

[Tobias Lindholm]

I think it served the project. I think that had I not been that specific, I would probably have been told in to do some CGI submarine, some easy place where it wouldn't have taken us days. But, but, but I insisted. And therefore I spent like a tenth of the budget to build a submarine that we could raised from the ocean that had the right weight. And it connects very well with the transcript. I mean, this was the transcript I had. I had actually access to the right boat, the right people, the right way I could actually do this.

[Interviewer / Host]

Like, how would that affect me as a viewer and in what you're trying to relay to the viewer?

[Tobias Lindholm]

Well, I think that the specific, the specificity us off it creates the journey there. Like you transport somebody into a situation where there is a certain point of view and a specific point of view that allows you to be present in the Scene.

[Antonio Campos]

Well, I think that's the thing. There is that there's a care. If a filmmaker cares, and they care about every frame and they care about every detail. You don't know it, but somehow you just feel it on some subconscious level. I mean, ultimately, filmmaking, TV shows, we're just trying to capture moments and create moment by moment. And moments that feel real, that touch you, that grab you, that surprise you. All of that requires an attention to detail. And that's what makes things feel real. And I think that's what allows you to get close, closer to the characters that are representing the real people.

[Interviewer / Host]

It sounds like all you guys, like, you're imposing reality on yourselves. You're imposing fact on yourselves and rules that kind of follow from facts, and that helps you with your process. It's interesting because I've always felt like when I've thought about, could I write fiction or could I write something that's not real? The tyranny of the blank page just overwhelms me. And I so love the work I do in terms of being able to mine reality for that, for story. But it sounds like you're doing the same thing. Like, you guys need that too, but don't you guys? You're not just starting with a blank page. You're giving yourself rules and saying, I have to adhere to certain things. I have to.

[Tom McCarthy]

You know, I think so. But I work with certain writers who I think are very uniquely comfortable in the space of reality. Meaning they like stories culled from real life. Right? They want that. They want to go into the facts and find it, find it, find it because it's there somewhere.

[Interviewer / Host]

And.

[Tom McCarthy]

And then other writers who. They're allergic to that, they just want to get lost in it. And that's another part of cinema which is beautiful and wonderful. And like, I know. Cause I've worked with a lot of different writers of different sort of intentions that, like, some people love it and some. I'll be like, I could never ask him to go write this, right? Cause he'll just. He'll lose his mind. You know, like, he wants. The constraints are too much or it's too wide open.

[Tobias Lindholm]

Right.

[Interviewer / Host]

I was gonna ask, what is the role of your imaginations in this work? Like, how do you think about your imagination?

[Tobias Lindholm]

I realized very early on in my life that I was not a fan of my own imagination. Like, as a child, I didn't like playing with dolls.

[Antonio Campos]

So Danish.

[Tobias Lindholm]

I was like, I'm not amused by it. Who gives? Like, yeah, I can think of this. I can Think of that. But it's not real. I remember sitting there with very specifically, probably eight years, seven years old. Eight years old. With Lego, which is, you know, a Danish toy company. And what is it?

[Tom McCarthy]

Lego.

[Tina Satter]

Lego.

[Tom McCarthy]

Lego must be specifically Danish.

[Interviewer / Host]

Maybe you've heard of it.

[Tobias Lindholm]

And these small figures. Back then it was not, you know, you weren't building a friend's set or it was like just these boring characters and playing with them. I really fast realized that they weren't talking to each other. It was me making it up. And I realized that they didn't have any emotions. It was not like, oh, now he's really angry at this. It was like, I can just leave this behind. And so I realized it was much better to, you know, read stories and play chess and follow some rules.

[Interviewer / Host]

Is there a liberty that any of you have taken that you regret? Like a. Like a, you know, a fictional liberty?

[Tobias Lindholm]

I think actually, for me it's like more the opposite. I did a film called A Hijacking and. And it's about a Danish ship being captured by Somali pirates. And I decided that I could only make a hijacking if we rented a boat and sailed into the ocean where the pirates were.

[Interviewer / Host]

That's the only way you could make it.

[Tobias Lindholm]

That's the only way I could find the truth in this story, you know, And I had a pregnant wife and a 2 year old at home. And there we are sailing out into the Indian Ocean. And we didn't have money for insurance, so instead we had hired soldiers from the Kenyan army to protect us.

[Tom McCarthy]

They were cheaper.

[Tobias Lindholm]

Little did we know that they have never sailed. So they were all seasick. So they were like all around the boat puking. And we were shooting this scene and suddenly the producer yells, like, everything comes to a stop. And I'm down below, like, looking at the monitor, and then I just hear this, like this boat approaching. And I suddenly see a guy that I didn't really know what his job was, but he goes like. And he pulls out this huge gun on the side of the boat. Like, clearly he has the intent to protect us if anybody tries to board the ship that we're shooting on. And in that moment I was like, maybe an ocean that looked like an Indian Ocean. Could have been. All right.

[Tom McCarthy]

See, my brain goes to the acting pirates on the ship who suddenly realize none of their guns are real.

[Tobias Lindholm]

You're right.

[Tom McCarthy]

And that they're being confronted by real pirates. And now they're very bummed.

[Tobias Lindholm]

Yes.

[Interviewer / Host]

I feel like I've gotten everybody a story from everybody about what drama can bring or fiction can bring to a real story. When did you know Spotlight was a story?

[Tom McCarthy]

When I knew it was a story.

[Interviewer / Host]

Yeah. Or when it was a movie. When did you know Spotlight is a movie?

[Tom McCarthy]

Can I switch to scotch if we're going to do this?

[Interviewer / Host]

After a quick break, Tom McCarthy on the troubling secret he discovered while making Spotlight. Also, I'm going to share an outtake from this conversation in our newsletter. At one point, we all ended up comparing notes about the state of our industries, about Hollywood and documentary and audio and journalism and how it's all affecting what work you end up seeing and hearing. You can sign up for our newsletter at kcrw.com/question everything. Welcome back to the show. We're hanging out after hours at a wine shop in New York with four movie directors, including Tom McCarthy, who I think of as kind of a bard of journalists. He really has dramatized us a lot. He not only co wrote and directed the most acclaimed movie about journalism of the last decade, Spotlight, which won the Oscar for best picture in 2016.

[Brian Reed]

He also made a show about Roger.

[Interviewer / Host]

Ailes and Fox News called the Loudest Voice, along with a recent ABC procedural about a newspaper in Anchorage called Alaska Daily. It starred Hilary Swank and it's really an ode to local news. Tom also actually played a journalist. He's an actor, too. In the fifth season of the Wire, he played a dodgy Baltimore sun reporter who was making up stories in the paper. You'll hear him talk a bit about that and about the former Baltimore sun reporter who created the Wire, David Simon. Tom, for people who haven't seen Spotlight.

[Tom McCarthy]

What'S the gist that this hour date.

[Robin Simeon]

I wonder if you should do it.

[Interviewer / Host]

Oh, you want me to do it?

[Tom McCarthy]

Oh, yeah. I love that.

[Interviewer / Host]

Spotlight is a wonderful movie. It's about the Boston Globe's investigative unit, the Spotlight unit that investigated what they discovered was systemic, a cover up of systemic abuse within the Catholic Church in the diocese in Boston. And it's the story of that investigation and just systematically piecing together that this wasn't just one instance of abuse, this wasn't just one priest. This was. Yeah, like the whole church and institutions connected to it helping to keep this under wraps.

[Tom McCarthy]

Rahman, that was pretty good, wasn't it? I think it's solid.

[Tobias Lindholm]

That's the movie I saw.

[Robin Simeon]

Good scene.

[Antonio Campos]

Okay.

[Brian Reed]

Well done.

[Tom McCarthy]

Right. Like we knew it was an interesting story when Josh Singer, my co writer and I started on at the time, just I say that, but actually when it was first brought to Me, I couldn't see it. I said no to the story the first time, which is maybe. I don't know if you do that as a journalist. I'm sure you guys have done it a million times. Film. But, like, someone approached when the producers brought me it, I looked at it and I thought, I know it. I remember it. But I couldn't see the story in it. And I let. I just walked away from it.

[Interviewer / Host]

You grew up Catholic?

[Tom McCarthy]

Grew up Catholic. Raised Catholic. Went to Boston College, an undergraduate. And I felt comfortable in the Irish Catholic culture of Boston. I was a. I was an altar boy growing up. Like, I know that. I know those people, but I just couldn't see the story. And I let it go. And a year later, I was sitting, trying to think what I was going to do next. I'm like, I wonder if that story's taught there. And they'd gone to another very good writer. He couldn't crack it. And I just re engaged with it. And so I knew it was something, and Josh and I started poking at it. But we were researching it for a good six months.

[Robin Simeon]

What were the challenges you were coming up against?

[Tom McCarthy]

I just couldn't wrap my head around how to say anything new with it. Like, the investigation was so thorough and the storytelling was so complete.

[Antonio Campos]

Right.

[Tom McCarthy]

On some level, it's like, what are we gonna do? It wasn't interesting to me, just to reenact it, to dramatize it. Like, I was like, what do we bring that's new and fresh to this and how do we do it? And we didn't have the answer when we started researching, but we got so into the research for about six months, just going back to Boston, mostly spending time with the reporters and some survivors who are incredibly generous with their stories, but really, really with the reporters, trying to understand how that investigation went and that it just felt like it was our in. We knew we had to engage with the survivors in their story because it was so key to the story. But we thought the investigation at that point, and especially where journalism was pitched at the moment, and little did we know how dire it was going to get. But we thought, this is a story worth telling. And I think, you know, I just. I had spent some time on the wire playing a journalist with questionable ethics. And David Simon had really drilled into me just, like, how bad it was. And you see it on that show, which is 20 years ago, how bad what was, like, where the profession was going. I see the profession of journalism, how under fire it was. You know, David was a Journalist, Right. And ultimately, I was. You know, he plopped me in a newsroom, and it was just like, hammering us with every. Like, they wouldn't let us do anything. And inevitably, he populated it with fellow journalists from the sun or the Post. You know, he's be talking to an extra, and you're like, this extra is incredibly intelligent, and he knows a lot about foreign policy, specifically in the Middle East.

[Interviewer / Host]

He would have these moments of like.

[Tom McCarthy]

I think that was. I really learned a lot from. I came out of that feeling like it was a mini master class. And so by the time we got into Spotlight, we did all this reporting, investigating all this, and then. And then it was like. I would say it was quite a while before we really nailed, like, you know, I'm always asking, like, what's it about? Like, that, to me, is important. It's not important to every filmmaker, but to me, it is. I'm always like, why am I going to spend two years of my life on this? Like, I need to know what I'm talking about on some level or what's going to drive us. And ultimately, I remember it was, like, about seven, eight months into the research and writing. We were in my office in New York, and I was reading, doing research on psychologists dealing with the trauma of sexual abuse. And this woman said, at some point, you know, if it takes a village to raise a child, it takes a village to abuse one. And I was like, oh, my God, it was Romans moments. Like, that's the movie. That's the. And I read it to Josh, and Josh is like, oh, man, That's. That's. That's kind of. It's institutional. It's everybody like you. It just. That level of. That level of criminality can't exist in a city without that level of complicity. And suddenly complicity became the word on the board. And then we started looking at that, and what struck me is that in talking to the reporters about the work they do and how they approach it and the narratives that they ultimately weave, that our work wasn't that different. Our approach to the work, our research, our attention to details, our character study, the more they would talk, Josh and I would go have a drink afterwards and be like, fuck, it could be us talking about our work. It's the same work. There's just a different. It's just a different platform, right? And that really stuck with us. What they're trying to get to the bottom is the facts, the truth. And I think ultimately, as storytellers, we're doing that, but we're really just trying to get to the essence. I think you used that word earlier, Antonio. Who's right? Like, the essence of the story. Like, what's that truth?

[Interviewer / Host]

Did you tell me this once? Did you actually, like, uncover something in your research that wasn't known? Like, about.

[Tom McCarthy]

Yeah.

[Interviewer / Host]

Can you tell?

[Tom McCarthy]

Yeah, it's sort of in the movie. But like, it was that idea of. We were interviewing the lawyer, the Billy Crudda place, and he was sort of saying at one point, I went to the Globe with this story years before, and this guy was a little bit of a talker. He was smooth, he was good. And we were. He's a lawyer. And we're like, uh huh huh. And he's like, no, I did check their clips. Check the clips. I went to them and they buried the story. And we were like, okay. And we left. And Josh is like, I'm going to the Globe. I was like, okay, I have to go do some work. You call me. And he went right to the clips and he found it. And it was a story that Robbie had written, played by Michael Keaton, and it was buried. They buried the story. And so we're. Josh calls me. He's like, you got to see this. You got. I got to come to you. And he showed me. I'm like, oh, man. And now, at this point, as we've talked about a little bit, you become friends with these people, you come very close to them people, you want to do right by them, and let's be honest, you want them to like you. Because I think that's human nature.

[Tina Satter]

Yeah, right.

[Tom McCarthy]

And suddenly we're like, this. This isn't good. This doesn't read well.

[Tina Satter]

So that's a big part of the movie.

[Tom McCarthy]

Yeah. And. And it speaks. Exactly. So we went to Rob, who was a good friend at the time, and said, look, this is what we just found in your clips. And what do you think? And that is sort of the moment that is portrayed in the movie, late in the movie, where Robbie brings that up and he's like, it's that thing that every reporter fears, which is we missed it. We reported on it, but we didn't hit it. You're stumbling around in the dark. Right. And it's easy to miss. And it's incredibly painful when the stakes are that big.

[Interviewer / Host]

So you remembered it?

[Tom McCarthy]

Yeah. I mean, he had actually written about it, but it was sort of deeply buried in the paper.

[Interviewer / Host]

And it was one story. They hadn't, like, made it, they hadn't.

[Tom McCarthy]

Chased, and they should have. It wasn't nefarious or. There was no intention behind it. I think it was just, you know, it's like in sports, sometimes you don't make the play and it's painful. And especially if you care. And those guys all care, right? They're great journalists, but it spoke to, I think, the culture at the Globe at the time. Maybe that's the advantage we get as screenwriters, right? You know, as journalists, you're on a deadline, you gotta deliver the story, and you better get it right.

[Tina Satter]

All of this just makes me think what movies that are fiction projects do that are beyond what mainstream media, especially recently, can do.

[Interviewer / Host]

Say more.

[Tobias Lindholm]

What do you mean?

[Tina Satter]

Every one of us did it with a. Like that. Like, it does go under the headline, the way most mainstream media just can't hold for these days. Do. You know, like, I grew up in New England and I. The Boston Globe was our paper. I'm from New Hampshire, but like. And of course, I grew up in an age of knowing of all the stuff with the Roman Catholic Church. And until I saw Spot, like, Spotlight was like, I fully got it. I could feel it in my molecules. You know what I mean? Like, all this stuff that I love and have been really meaningful and given me a lot of my education was print media, non fiction print media. But that movie made me understand and then feel a kind of rage that was actually really upsetting to finally fully feel emotionally, you know, and then talk about everyone I knew. And that movie did that.

[Tom McCarthy]

It seems like there's a chance with narratives to actually transport people to a place in time. And therefore, all these examples, I think, are reasons to do that.

[Tobias Lindholm]

Right?

[Tom McCarthy]

Because you can take an audience like, okay, you know the story now I'm gonna put you in it now. You're gonna breathe it now you're gonna touch it and you're gonna feel it. And the director, Writer, director is making choices about when they're gonna leave you at the doorstep. And you're not gonna hear the conversation about the. Maybe the police chief talking to the parents, but you don't really need to. Right? You know what, that. We've seen that conversation, but catching it in, like the half light in this sort of remote, you know, kind of rural place with the trash can still out. It's so identifiable and so foreign. So you're transported there. That's the reason to do it. As storytellers, that's. We're always just looking for a way in to kind of explore humanity. Right. I think. I think if you care, you know, I think if you care.

[Brian Reed]

Thank you guys.

[Interviewer / Host]

This was wonderful. Thank you so much.

[Tom McCarthy]

Thank you.

[Interviewer / Host]

This is a real blast.

[Tina Satter]

Thank you.

[Brian Reed]

By the way, we shot this conversation with a bunch of fancy cameras and a film crew actually, so you can go check it out on YouTube, KCRW's YouTube channel. Just search for KCOW. There's it was a little nerve wracking doing this in front of four directors, but anyway it came out really nice. Also, we're going to list in the show notes some clarifications and corrections that our fact checker Maggie Duffy pointed out from our conversation. We were drinking. Not everybody was totally precise about every little detail and so we're going to put those in the show notes. Thanks again to Bibber and Bell in Brooklyn, the wine shop where we recorded this episode. It was produced by Brendan Baker and Emily Multaire. Brendan also did the sound design and mixing. The episode was edited by Jonathan Goldstein, Robin Simeon and me. It was booked by Alyssa Shipp. Our show is made by producers Zach St. Louis and Sophie Kazis, Jen Kinney and Neil Drumming, our contributing editors. Our managing editor is Kevin Sullivan. Associate producers are Kevin Shepard and Emma Grillo. Fact checking by Maggie Duffy Matt McGinley composed our music. The video of this episode that I mentioned was edited by Kevin Sprague, Sound engineering by Gabe Kroga, film production by Ambrose Eng and Luke Hanson at Stone and Spade. Our partners at KCRW include Arnie Seiple, Gina Delvak, Tejala Gemera and Jennifer Farrow. Have a great holiday and please tell your friends and family about the show over the break. Catch up on old episodes, rate and review us all that good stuff. We'll see you soon.

[KCRW App Announcer]

I just got my new phone and the KCRW app is the best way to get the music and shows you love for from kcrw. And it's been totally redone to be cleaner, faster and more reliable. And there's two new music Dance 24 and Vintage 24 and they're only in the app plus real time now playing so you never miss a track ID. Look up KCRW in the App Store and be sure to make a free account to use all the new features.