On Movies: Q&A with Ambler native, 'Spotlight' writer, Oscar nominee Josh Singer

Josh Singer is really in the spotlight now.

On Thursday morning, the name of the Ambler native and Harvard Law-grad-turned-Hollywood scribe was announced alongside the likes of DiCaprio, Damon, and Blanchett when nominations for the 88th Academy Awards were read off in Beverly Hills, Calif. Singer, along with co-writer Tom McCarthy, is a nominee for the original screenplay Oscar for Spotlight, the searing true story of the Boston Globe's Pulitzer Prize-winning investigation into pedophile priests in the Catholic Church. It received six nominations in all, including best picture, best director (for McCarthy) and two acting nods - for Mark Ruffalo and Rachel McAdams as reporters on the Globe's heralded Spotlight team.

Singer, Upper Dublin High Class of 1990, had circled back to Philadelphia (his mother lives here, as do family and friends) on Jan. 5. Then he was headed for New York and then home to Los Angeles in time for last Sunday's Golden Globes. On his quick visit here, he sat down over coffee to talk about how he landed in Hollywood and got the gig writing what is now an Academy Award-nominated motion picture. Here are excerpts from the interview:

You went to Yale, you went to law school at Harvard. Screenplays? How did that happen?

Between college and grad school, I worked at a consulting firm in New York - and I loved the people, but the work was making me think about death a lot. I was looking for a creative outlet, and a buddy said, "Creativity happens at your desk."

So I started writing - and I wasn't very good.

And I went to grad school and that was when The West Wing began to air. I was just blown away. Aaron Sorkin was having this conversation with the American people about things that were important to them, to us all.

Aaron is a brilliant writer and he has this way of finding an issue . . . and finding the three most salient points about that issue and working them into an entertainment such that you walk away both entertained and feeling like you've learned something.

So I finished grad school and I said to my parents, "I'm going to go give this a try."

I have to credit my parents, and my father, who paid to put me through grad school. When I told them I was going to L.A., he didn't bat an eyelash. He was a dreamer. . . . He was a dentist here in Philly, in Jenkintown, and he worked really hard . . .. Bruce Singer was his name. He and my mom both were like, "Go give it a shot. How long are you going to spend out there?" Ha!

And I think we agreed three years, I'd give it three years, and I just got really lucky.

Was there a big break?

At the time, writing features didn't make any sense to me at all. It just felt like the Wild West, and to some degree it is - which is one of the things I love about it now. But at the time, here's a guy coming from law school, and out of consulting - what's the ladder? And television was a clear ladder.

They have these "staffing seasons" where they audition new writers, where you basically write spec scripts, mock scripts of television shows on the air, and . . . you try to get an agent. . . and the agents will try to get you on a show as a baby writer.

And I wrote a spec script for The West Wing about Israel and Palestine, and I was getting a little bit of traction. But then I took out a sublet from a woman who was dating and later married Llewellyn Wells, the line producer of The West Wing.

Lew read my script and very graciously gave me notes and after I took his notes, he passed it on to John Wells, the executive producer, who was taking the show over from Aaron.

John read the script . . . I guess he thought I'd done an OK job, so when he hired a new staff, I was the baby writer on that staff.

You were on "The West Wing" staff for three seasons, and then you wrote for the television series "Law & Order: SVU" and "Fringe." When did the move to movies happen?

Here I was, an erstwhile television writer, and I gradually became a little bored with writing other people's worlds, other people's characters.

So I wrote a spec script about George Gershwin writing Porgy and Bess, and it found its way to Steven Spielberg. He and Stacy Snider [at the time DreamWorks' co-chair], liked it and that led to my deal writing The Fifth Estate, about Julian Assange and Wikileaks.

Another journalism story! Is that what led to "Spotlight"?

Yes, Tom hired me off of that screenplay.

And then it was three years reporting and interviewing and writing and rewriting and rewriting Spotlight. . . . If you had told me that we were going to rewrite nearly every scene in the movie, I literally would have lost my mind.

I'm a fairly organized, structural person. Pulling a scene apart days before you're about to shoot it scares the hell out of me. But a) Tom's relentless, and b) we were hearing things from the actors and the real-life victims and reporters, and c) over the long course of shooting a movie, it starts to become its own thing. It's such alchemy, moviemaking.

So the Golden Globes. The critics awards. You're 99.9 percent certain to be Oscar-nominated. How are you handling all of that?

It's all a little bizarro. There are wonderful moments, and then there are just weird moments.

Like, I got to meet Amy Schumer, I'm a huge fan, I have so much admiration for her. And the other day, I was at this luncheon with a bunch of journalists in New York, and Tom Brokaw is moderating - Tom Brokaw! - and I'm sitting next to this guy who says he's Rick and he writes about politics and it turns out to be Hendrick Hertzberg, political columnist for the New Yorker. We were sitting there talking politics. It was great.

I think this whole thing of, like, picking what's best is a little wackadoodle. But to the extent that it pushes the movie and gets more people to go see the movie, there's nothing at all wrong with that.

Anything else you feel it's important to say?

What I really want to talk about is the Eagles and how they need to keep [quarterback] Sam Bradford.

I'm a huge Bradford fan. I'm a believer. I was a believer at the beginning. I thought he was rusty and I feel like if you look at his arc over the season . . . he's looked great in the last five, six games.

I confess, I still bleed Eagles green. Tough season. Tough season.

srea@phillynews.com

215-854-5629@Steven_Rea

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SOMEBODY PINCH HIM

Reached midafternoon Thursday, Singer was understandably elated with his Oscar nomination. He was up before dawn to watch the announcements live, with his wife, novelist Laura Dave. "I said to my wife before we went to bed last night that if we got five nominations, I'd be really excited - and we got six. It's thrilling.

"Look, the most exciting thing about this is it will hopefully get more people out to the theaters and we get to continue having this conversation about journalism, and continue spreading awareness about clergy sex abuse, and this bigger question of deference and complicity.

"But I'm thrilled, I'm grateful, and I'm still trying to take it all in."

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