Tom McCarthy has appeared as an actor in movies like “Duplicity” and “Baby Mama” but he is now better known for his writing and directing the acclaimed films “The Station Agent,” the Oscar-winning “Spotlight,” and “The Visitor.”  His film “Win Win,” stars newcomer Alex Shaffer as a teenage wrestling champ who ends up staying with a lawyer/coach played by Paul Giamatti when his grandfather, who is in the early stages of dementia, is placed by Giamatti’s character into a nursing home.  I spoke to both of them about wrestling, writing, what it feels like to be good at both, and doing whatever it takes.

I don’t know much about wrestling so I was surprised by how fast you moved.

TM: Especially the lighter weights.  They are really exciting. The lighter weights it’s just wicked to watch.  That match that I went to at your school – even the refs couldn’t keep up.

AS: Over 130 or 140 it’s more about strength.

One of the key moments in the film has Paul Giamatti’s character asking your character, Kyle, what it feels like to be that good at something.  Kyle says it feels like being in control.  Is that how it feels?

AS: For Kyle, for me it just feels good to be that good.  It’s a very comforting feeling.

TM: That would have been a good answer for Kyle, too.

What makes you feel that good?

TM: I like being immersed in work.  I like it when I’m in a sweet spot in the work.  When I’m writing I have a ritual or a regimen and I get really lost in it, get out of my own head and follow an idea, or a story, or a character.  I really like being in that space.

What was the beginning of the idea of this movie for you?

TM: I have this mental folder that I drop things into and when they feel like they’re of the same world I start to put together the movie.  It certainly was the wrestling at the beginning.  I called Joe , my co-writer, and said, “Have you ever seen a movie about high school wrestling?”  We started to joke about our own bad experiences and then talked about the good ones, the world in general, how unique a world it was, looking back on it 20 years later.

And the other idea was about where we are in society, the title, “Win Win,” like “Oh, you can have a mortgage and pay nothing and a car and put no money down” and we all believed it for a while.  Oh, that’s great, why wouldn’t you do that!  It will cost nothing!  The other idea that aligned with that thought was that we are polarized in society.  The bad bankers did bad things – but those people are our neighbors.  We ride the train, the bus with them.  They’re not bad people; they just made some bad choices.

So wrestling with that part of our human condition – we all have that aptitude, to so surprisingly and sometimes shockingly bad things in certain scenarios.  Mike is confronted with that and that I felt very interested in.  It’s not enough to say, “I have a family, I have a good job, I’m a good person.”  That is not an excuse or a guarantee.  That I found interesting.

Alex, you went from doing something that you knew very well and were very good at to something that was completely new to you, and you were surrounded by some of the most experienced and talented actors in movies.  What was that like for you?

AS: I wasn’t nervous because it was something I didn’t care about that much.  Sorry, Tom!  Halfways, no more like one-third of the way through, I began to think, “I really want to do good.  I like this guy, I don’t want to ruin the movie for him.”

TM: I think that’s a good way to go into it!  I think that’s a problem for a lot of actors who go into an audition wanting it so badly, they sabotage themselves because they’re so anxious.  I think when I stopped caring about acting quite so much, when I got more involved in writing and directing, either I’m right for it or not, I started getting more jobs.

How did you like being a blonde for the filming?

AS: I was a blonde before the filming.

TM: He came to us like that!

AS: It wasn’t my idea for the movie.  Our team before we wrestled Phillipsburg, not every year but when the team’s good, we want to psych them out, so that year the whole team bleached our hair blonde.

I thought it was very funny that Amy Ryan’s character Jackie called you Eminem.

TM: We got a studio note about that: “Emeneim, isn’t he a little bit past now?”  I don’t think Jackie’s cutting edge!   And besides, now he won the Grammy!

AS: He’s amazing!  He will never be gone!
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