TJ: I mean, I never . That bad people dont deserve kindness, and that you, when you you literally call them a piece of shit on Twitter, that you are somehow striking a moral blow, that you are somehow being part of the resistance. And I think that audience is sort of self-selecting and limited by definition, almost. It was the first time I had read the story in a really long time. He writes all his own scripts, but on this day, when he receives a visit from Mrs. McFeely and a springer spaniel, she says that she has to bring the dog "back to his owner," and Mister Rogers makes a face. "It's not a performance. And he had a relationship with a lot of people." And now the boy didn't know how to respond. It's interesting because the journalist, named Lloyd Vogel in the movie, is introduced as a harsh cynic who's notorious for shredding the character of the people he writes about. Cerebral palsy is something that happens to the brain. I was okay with Lloyd Vogel with bunny ears. ", "What prayer is that, Mister Rogers? It's Lloyd Vogel, a fictionalized character based on Atlanta writer Tom Junod. His grandfather, his grandmother, his uncles, his aunts, his father-in-law and mother-in-law, even his family's servantshe went to each grave, and spoke their names, and told their stories, until finally I headed back down to the Jeep and turned back around to see Mister Rogers standing high on a green dell, smiling among the stones. "It's Joanne," he said. 'Most people think of us as a great domestic airline. Isn't that wonderful?". 'I love you.'. In fact, when Mister Rogers first told me the story, I complimented him on being so smartfor knowing that asking the boy for his prayers would make the boy feel better about himselfand Mister Rogers responded by looking at me at first with puzzlement and then with surprise. I said, 'Do you know that you're strong on the inside, too?' "A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood" is more or less the story of how an Esquire article comes into being. They are tallas tall as the cinder-block walls they are designed to hideand they encompass the Neighborhood's entire stage set, from the flimsy yellow house where Mister Rogers comes to visit, to the closet where he finds his sweaters, to the Neighborhood of Make-Believe, where he goes to dream. Junod had hoped the changes would bring protection, as he wrote, "I had counted on the plots many departures from my life to insulate me from the emotional effect of seeing some version of myself up there." The event is the premise of the 2019 feature film A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood. First mook: "Looks like you're gonna have to break down and buy a dictionary." I am ashamed to say it, but I was too cool at the time for Mr. Rogers. Heres Our Review Of Cocaine Bear: Oh Hell Yes! Thunderstruck means that you can't talk, because something has happened that's as sudden and as miraculous and maybe as scary as a bolt of lightning, and all you can do is listen to the rumble. First mook: "He says it's the Greek word for grace." On his computer, the boy answered yes, of course, he would do anything for Mister Rogers, so then Mister Rogers said, "I would like you to pray for me. On this afternoon, the end of a hot, yellow day in New York City, he was very tired, and when I asked if I could go to his apartment and see him, he paused for a moment and said shyly, "Well, Tom, I'm in my bathrobe, if you don't mind." The movie, which opens November 22, casts Rogers as an agent of change . A clock is a machine that tells people what time it is, but as Mister Rogers sat in the backseat of an old station wagon hired to take him from his apartment to Penn Station, he worried that Maya Lin's clock might be too fancy and that the children who watch the Neighborhood might not understand it. "Thanks, my dear," he said to me, then turned back to Deb. Scenes where Lloyd Vogel passes out on the set of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood and Fred Rogers visits Jerry Vogel with a pie are created for the dramatic purposes of the story and have no baring on . While Junod wrote that he learned the concepts of forgiveness and . Three died, and they were still children, almost. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site. Harpster and Fitzerman-Blue were joined onstage by Tom Junod, whose beautiful 1998 profile of Mr. Rogers for Esquire provided a main influence on the film. The premise of the moviebased on a profile of Rogers that the journalist Tom Junod wrote in 1998, for Esquireis that an investigative reporter named Lloyd Vogel (played by Matthew Rhys), who . ", "I know that," Mister Rogers said, "and that's why the prayer I'm going to teach you has only three words. Its Joanne, he said. TJ: Yes. He was not a dogmatic person, but he was dogmatic about thatthat media should not be used as a distraction. I dont know if Im ever going to be as good at the active devotion whereas Fred would like me or us to be. It had more to do with his relationship to his own father, which was a focal point for the film. LloydRead More Once upon a time, there was a boy who didn't like himself very much. He had always loved Mister Rogers, though, and now, even when he was fourteen years old, he watched the Neighborhood whenever it was on, and the boy's mother sometimes thought that Mister Rogers was keeping her son alive. In fact, it's an honorific. He told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, I idolized him. Synopsis: A profile of Fred Rogers, or as we know him from the Neighborhood, from childhood, Mister Rogers. But Junod says he recognizes Vogel's . Everything we can't stop loving . TJ: I mean, I never had that nightmare, but very interesting. . Twenty minutes later, I got off the train, chose the closest of the stations 14 exits to start my Junod scavenger hunt from, reached the top of the stairs, turned to cross the street, and, wow, okayover on the other end, red turtleneck, black suit, there he is. Fred Rogers loved her very much, and so, out of nowhere, he smiled and put his hand over hers. In the movie, Tom Junod's name is changed to Lloyd Vogel. His hand was warm, hers was cool, and we bowed our heads, and closed our eyes, and I heard Deb's voice calling out for the grace of God. And so, once upon a time, Fred Rogers took off his jacket and put on a sweater his mother had made him, a cardigan with a zipper. The film's protagonist is journalist Lloyd Vogel (Matthew Rhys), a cynic who is assigned by his editors at Esquire to write a profile on Rogers. ", He was barely more than a boy himself when he learned what he would be fighting for, and fighting against, for the rest of his life. Hero?" is about Mr. Rogers as much as it is . It means that you can think but sometimes can't walk, or even talk. And its all in there. Explore the full November 1998 issue of Esquire. Reading This 1998 Esquire Profile Of Mr. Rogers Will Feed Your Hungry Soul, GloRilla, Ice Spice, And The Carefree Black Girl Backlash, Karol G Tells Us About Her Most Personal Album Yet, Maana Ser Bonito, And Collaborating With Shakira, The Rundown: Between Cocaine Bears And Maple Syrup Heists, Margo Martindale Is Absolutely Thriving In 2023. esquire article. Yes, sure, he was taping, and right there, in Penn Station in New York City, were rings of other children wiggling in wait for him, but right now his patient gray eyes were fixed on the little boy with the big sword, and so he stayed there, on one knee, until the little boy's eyes finally focused on Mister Rogers, and he said, "It's not a sword; it's a death ray." ESQ: So its like we dont knowwith the popular mediums we have nowhow to show kindness or come up to each other. Tom Hanks plays Fred Rogers, the minister who became a children's TV host then beacon of hope for a struggling society, and also the person who saves Lloyd. And that always struck me as perverse. He is losing to it, to our twenty-four-hour-a-day pie fight, to the dizzying cut and the disorienting edit, to the message of fragmentation, to the flicker and pulse and shudder and strobe, to the constant, hivey drone of the electrocultureand yet still he fights, deathly afraid that the medium he chose is consuming the very things he tried to protect: childhood and silence. What is grace? He allowed me to choose between two visions of manhood, a choice I suspect Ill have to continue making for the rest of my life, which is why Im writing my book and which is why I asked the producers of the movie to change the names.". ESQ: Another interesting thing in your piece is how you talk about how theres still a hunger for spreading goodness in the world. A minute ago we were stand-ins for children watching the show; now we seem to be somehow inside the brain of Lloyd Vogel (Matthew Rhys), a cynical Esquire reporter tasked with profiling Rogers for . Who wrote the Esquire article about Mr Rogers? "Now, Deb, I'd like to ask you a favor," he said. He knowing what only Fred could do. Children are so easily influenced I have grown into a middle aged man and I wish I had a better influencer in time of Mr.Rogers. Oh, honey, Mommy knew you could do it.And so now, encouraged, Mommy said, "Do you want to give Mister Rogers a hug, honey?" The day of the show, he called and asked if I could take the subway down to Bryant Park. ", "Oh, please, sister," Mister Rogers says. A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood is based on the real-life story of journalist Tom Junod and an article he wrote for Esquire magazine profiling Fred Rogers. And so we went to the graveyard. the Junod character is Lloyd Vogel, played by Matthew . Junod is also noted for his Esquire profile of Fred Rogers. Junod also inspired Matthew Rhys' character, a fictional Esquire writer named Lloyd Vogel.. Also read: Where That Navy SEALs Rumor Started A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood shows how Fred Rogers used television to reach into the hearts . Tom Hanks channels Mister Rogers in a movie about how the legendary kids' TV host saves a magazine writer, and could maybe save all of us. "Would you like to speak to him?" Based on the 1998 Esquire article, "Can You SayHero?" by award-winning journalist Tom Junod, the movie illustrates how, during the process of interviewing Mr. Rogers for a "puff piece," the writer (re-named in the movie as Lloyd Vogel, and played by Matthew Rhys) undergoes a personal transformation. There was an energy to him, however, a fearlessness, an unashamed insistence on intimacy, and though I tried to ask him questions about himself, he always turned the questions back on me, and when I finally got him to talk about the puppets that were the comfort of his lonely boyhood, he looked at me, his gray-blue eyes at once mild and steady, and asked, "What about you, Tom? Then the car stopped on Thirty-fourth Street, in front of the escalators leading down to the station, and when the doors opened"Holy shit! Mister Rogers recorded 20 episodes of a show aimed at adults titled "Old Friends . I just wanted to let him know that he was strong on the inside, too. The news was confirmed by Fred Rogers Productions . The doctors were ophthalmologists. By the time Junod was done writing the story, he had become friends with Rogers.The two remained close until Rogers's death, in early 2003. But it might mean something to me, so thats why Ive been doing it. I took the phone and spoke to a womanhis wife, the mother of his two sonswhose voice was hearty and almost whooping in its forthrightness and who spoke to me as though she had known me for a long time and was making the effort to keep up the acquaintance. In the film, Junod is represented by the character Lloyd Vogel, played by Matthew Rhys. Fred Rogers, he of puppets, toys and perennial optimism, is seen as the best of America. He notes, "I think that my character is not just me. ", "Did your special friend have a name, Tom? "No, you're not," she says. Lloyd goes to interview Mr. Rogers and is shocked by his kindness, and the two form a bond. cynical writer Lloyd Vogel (based on Junod, but with a fictional estranged dad figure, played by Chris Cooper, so that Rogers can . "he turned into Mister Fucking Rogers. Would you like to tell me about Old Rabbit, Tom?". TJ: I think the mediums themselves sort of make us prejudiced against that. He was a kind man who made it a point to practice kindness to a vast audience, person by person. Matthew Rhys' character, the cynical Lloyd Vogel, is only loosely inspired by real-life journalist Tom Junod, hence the name change. He was sitting on a couch, under a framed rendering of the Greek word for grace and a biblical phrase written in Hebrew that means "I am my beloved's, and my beloved is mine." (2021, directed . Over 20 years after its publication, Junod, now a senior writer for ESPN, has come forward to share more about the lessons he's learned from Rogers, and how he's reconciled them with his feelings about A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood. She had a long face and a dark blush to her skin. We were heading back to his apartment in a taxi when I asked him what he had said. The movie is loosely based on Tom Junod's life around 1998 when he wrote an article on Mr. Rogers for Esquire magazine. One hundred and forty-three. It would take a couple Mister Rogers episodes and . He was in college. TJ: I mean, the tents great, but the tents intentional. I had never prayed like that before, ever. he asked Bill Isler, president of Family Communications, the company that produces Mister Rogers' Neighborhood. When Junod first read the script for the movie, he believed that the writers had made him out to be a jerk, though he had a much more colorful term for that. Your Privacy Choices: Opt Out of Sale/Targeted Ads. The blue walls are the ends of the daylit universe he has made, and yet Mister Rogers can't see themor at least can't know thembecause he was born blind to color. I'm standing against a wall, listening to a bunch of mooks from Long Island discuss the strange wordcariz a foreign wordhe has written down on each of the autographs he gave them. I asked him because I wanted his intercession.". I mean, to be honest with you, Ive been going and going in front of a crowd [suddenly, a lightbulb in Junods eyeview explodes in flames] Woah! Would you like to speak to him? he asked, and then handed me the phone. The movie is based on a true story, and is about the unexpected friendship between Mr. Rogers and a journalist who was assigned to profile Mr. Rogers for an Esquire article. Is Lloyd Vogel a real person? "Looks a bit likeOld Rabbit, doesn't it, Tom? Fred Rogers isn't even the central figure. He couldn't just say it, the way he could always just say to the children who watch his program that they are special to him, or even sing it, the way he would always sing "It's You I Like" and "Everybody's Fancy" and "It's Such a Good Feeling" and "Many Ways to Say I Love You" and "Sometimes People Are Good." This article was originally published in the November 1998 issue. "I don't know if I want to put on a performance.". It's Mister Fucking Rogers! . She weighed 280 pounds, and Mister Rogers weighed 143. The Esquire article which brings Lloyd Vogel and Fred Rogers together did actually happen; as did the writer's fruitful transformation off the page. Yes, at seventy years old and 143 pounds, Mister Rogers still fights, and indeed, early this year, when television handed him its highest honor, he responded by telling televisiongently, of courseto just shut up for once, and television listened. ESQ: One thing I was really interested in how in the The Atlantic piece, you spell out masculinity as defined by your father. Its name was Old Rabbit. You were a child once, too. I like to take pictures of all my new friends, so that I can show them to Joanne. And then, in the dark room, there was a wallop of white light, and Mister Rogers disappeared behind it. He had been on television before, but only as the voices and movements of puppets, on a program called The Children's Corner. ESQ: And then by Mister Rogers. It was one of those swords that really isn't a sword at all; it was a big plastic contraption with lights and sound effects, and it was the kind of sword used in defense of the universe by the heroes of the television shows that the little boy liked to watch. And so it was that the puppets he employed on The Children's Corner would be the puppets he employed forty-four years later, and so it was that once he took off his jacket and his shoeswell, he was Mister Rogers for good. Tom Hanks-starring Mister Rogers movie 'A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood' is loosely based off of the 'Esquire' profile Tom Junod, known as Lloyd Vogel in the film, wrote about Fred Rogers, and . Tick, Tick . And then he was on the move again, happily, quickly, for he would not leave until he showed me all the places of all those who'd loved him into being. The new film is inspired by the story of Rogers' relationship with journalist Tom Junod, who was assigned to profile Rogers in 1998 for a special issue of Esquire on American heroes. If they can hate something like that, you wonder how easy it would be for them to hate something more important." "Would you lead us? This is a man who loves the simplifying force of definitions, and yet all he knows of grace is how he gets it; all he knows is that he gets it from God, through man. He doesn't know the color of his walls, and one day, when I caught him looking toward his painted skies, I asked him to tell me what color they are, and he said, "I imagine they're blue, Tom." His name was Fred Rogers. The boy was thunderstruck because nobody had ever asked him for something like that, ever. This content is imported from youTube. Theres fire up there guys! Who Is John Dutton's Grandfather in '1923'? Can I take your picture, Tom? he asked. He peeked in the window, and in the same voice he uses on television, that voice, at once so patient and so eager, he pointed out each crypt, saying "There's my father, and there's my mother, and there, on the left, is my place, and right across will be Joanne." The window was of darkened glass, though, and so to see through it, we had to press our faces close against it, and where the glass had warped away from the frame of the doorwhere there was a finger-wide crackMister Rogers's voice leaked into his grave, and came back to us as a soft, hollow echo. In your eyes, whats the reason for the lack of action? Yeah. It wasnt like Fred was just a kind man who worked at the local food bank. One hundred and forty-three. "Bunny Wunny," she says. "Oh, Mister Rogers, thank you for my childhood." Joanne Rogers, the widow of Fred Rogers of TV's "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood" and an accomplished pianist, died Thursday. Enjoy a year of unlimited access to The Atlanticincluding every story on our site and app, subscriber newsletters, and more. It depicts Lloyd Vogel (Rhys), a troubled journalist for Esquire who is assigned to profile television icon Fred Rogers (Hanks). 2023 BDG Media, Inc. All rights reserved. That light just burned out and there was I mean, that was on fire. he said. Junod asked the filmmakers to stark his trail name lower the names of urgent family members, which exactly how page became Lloyd Vogel in your movie. That's cool. I'm listening to these guys when, from thirty feet away, I notice Mister Rogers looking around for someone and know, immediately, that he is looking for me. But A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood is just not that movie.This isn't "The Mister Rogers Story," or a biopic like the surreal Elton John biography Rocketman or the rise-of-Dick-Cheney story Vice. He was the soft son of overprotective parents, but he believed, right then, that he was strong enough to enter into battle with thatthat machine, that mediumand to wrestle with it until it yielded to him, until the ground touched by its blue shadow became hallowed and this thing called television came to be used "for the broadcasting of grace through the land." This article was the basis for the plot of the film A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood. He woke up in the morning and prayed, and wrote, and prayed for people. I dont like it. Tom Junod / Lloyd Vogel experiences this first hand as he tries to get Mr. Rogers to come "out of character". Fred was all person by person. Ive had people say, I know a lot of people who are really kind, but theyre just not media people, so no one knows about their kindness. I mean, the point is that Fred was a media person, and he did have a platform, and he spoke to an extremely large audience that he made into an even larger audience. The answer to: What did Fred want? What's more, it's based on a true story, with a few of the names changed. In the film, Lloyd is searching for something, anything to unveil about Rogers' true character (the closest he gets is a discussion about his relationship with . He thought about it for a second, then said, by way of agreement, "Okay, thentomorrow, Tom, I'll show you childhood." Fred Rogers, whose gentle . Ive gone on the road through this story and Ive become a spokesman not just for the movie, but for Fred, and its one of the great surprises of my life. I was sitting in a small chair by the door, and he said, "Tom, would you close the door, please?" Look at usI've just met you, but I'm investing in who you are and who you will be, and I can't help it. And thats how I became Lloyd Vogel." Fred" But Mister Rogers was out of the car, with his camera in his hand and his legs moving so fast that the material of his gray suit pants furled and unfurled around both of his skinny legs, like flags exploding in a breeze. "Do you think we can go in?" Lloyd has daddy issues, which Junod did not (at least not in the same way) something he outlines in a recent piece about Rogers for The Atlantic Monthly. Your prayers are just wonderful." One second, two seconds, three secondsand now the jaws clenched, and the bosoms heaved, and the mascara ran, and the tears fell upon the beglittered gathering like rain leaking down a crystal chandelier, and Mister Rogers finally looked up from his watch and said, "May God be with you" to all his vanquished children. There's a real Tom Junod, 61, of Marietta, whose 1998 profile of Rogers became the basis for the Tom Hanks movie that had audiences weeping and cheering at a preview last week . ; A reprinted copy of this article was included in one variation of promotional packages supporting A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood. Notes. Every timeless feature, profile, interview, novella - even the ads! Maybe it was something he needed to hear. Do you see masculinity as different endslike you could be this person or this person? The two remained close until Rogers's death, in early 2003. He didn't have an umbrella, and he couldn't find a taxi, either, so he ducked with a friend into the subway and got on one of the trains. He wrote, "I wrote Micah [Fitzerman-Blue] and Noah [Harpster] back, along with Peter Saraf, the producer at Big Beach, the company that had optioned my Esquire story, and asked them to change my name and the names of my family members. "This man's name is Tom. The quintessence of the man was not his nationality but his faith. "Neighborhood" is based on, and serves as a fictionalized expansion upon, Tom Junod's 1998 profile of Rogers in Esquire; the article is online and worth the read. "Oh, Mister Rogers, would you please just hug me?" He has spent thirty-one years imagining and reimagining those wallsthe walls that have both penned him in and set him free. The old navy-blue sport jacket comes off first, then the dress shoes, except that now there is not the famous sweater or the famous sneakers to replace them, and so after the shoes he's on to the dark socks, peeling them off and showing the blanched skin of his narrow feet. Koko watches Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, and when Mister Rogers, in his sweater and sneakers, entered the place where she lives, Koko immediately folded him in her long, black arms, as though he were a child, and then "She took my shoes off, Tom," Mister Rogers said. 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