If somebody had said five years ago, that I was going to be spending the months in October and November 2019 sort of speaking for Fred Rogersyeah, right. While Junod wrote that he learned the concepts of forgiveness and . This content is imported from youTube. Then he took off his shoes and put on a pair of navy-blue canvas boating sneakers. Thats as far as I want to go, you know? He was leading me to that moment of prayer that whole time that I was with him. Today marks the 10th anniversary of his death. In fact, the little boy with the big sword didn't know who Mister Rogers was, and so when Mister Rogers knelt down in front of him, the little boy with the big sword looked past him and through him, and when Mister Rogers said, "Oh, my, that's a big sword you have," the boy didn't answer, and finally his mother got embarrassed and said, "Oh, honey, c'mon, that's Mister Rogers," and felt his head for fever. His name was Fred Rogers. 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. Junod also appeared in the critically acclaimed documentary Won't You Be My Neighbor? 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. "But Mister Rogers, I can't pray," Joybubbles said, "because every time I try to pray, I forget the words. An ophthalmologist is a doctor who takes care of the eyes. . I had always been a great prayer, a powerful one, but only fitfully, only out of guilt, only when fear and desperation drove me to itand it hit me, right then, with my eyes closed, that this was the moment Fred RogersMister Rogershad been leading me to from the moment he answered the door of his apartment in his bathrobe and asked me about Old Rabbit. It's not a good word. Enjoy a year of unlimited access to The Atlanticincluding every story on our site and app, subscriber newsletters, and more. He would grow up to become a great prayer, this little boy, but only intermittently, only fitfully, praying only when fear and desperation drove him to it, and the night he threw Old Rabbit into the darkness was the night that set the pattern, the night that taught him how. The ophthalmologists did not want to scare children, so they asked Mister Rogers for help, and Mister Rogers agreed to write a chapter for a book the ophthalmologists were putting togethera chapter about what other ophthalmologists could do to calm the children who came to their offices. Once upon a time, you see, I lost something, and prayed to get it back, but when I lost it the second time, I didn't, and now this was it, the missing word, the unuttered promise, the prayer I'd been waiting to say a very long time. Oh, and I'll bet the two of you were together since he was a very young rabbit. And here, as he made his way through thickets of bewildered workmenthis skinny old man dressed in a gray suit and a bow tie, with his hands on his hips and his arms akimbo, like a dance instructorthere was some kind of wiggly jazz in his legs, and he went flying all around the outside of the house, pointing at windows, saying there was the room where he learned to play the piano, and there was the room where he saw the pie fight on a primitive television, and there was the room where his beloved father dieduntil finally we reached the front door. In the film, Junod is represented by the character Lloyd Vogel, played by Matthew Rhys. Would you do something for me?" The tie is next, the scanty black batwing of a bow tie hand-tied at his slender throat, and then the shirt, always white or light blue, whisked from his body button by button. Oh, hello, my dear, he said when he picked it up, and then he said that he had a visitor, someone who wanted to learn more about the Neighborhood. "I don't know if I want to put on a performance.". It is inspired by a 1998 Esquire article about Rogers by Tom . 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 . "Oh, I don't know, Fred," she said. He did the same thing the next day, and then the nextuntil he had done the same things, those things, 865 times, at the beginning of 865 television programs, over a span of thirty-one years. He is not speaking of the little girl. And what did Fred want from me? Welcome, Tom, he said with a slight bow, and bade me follow him inside, where he lay downno, stretched out, as though he had known me all his lifeon a couch upholstered with gold velveteen. Once upon a time, there was a little boy born blind, and so, defenseless in the world, he suffered the abuses of the defenseless, and when he grew up and became a man, he looked back and realized that he'd had no childhood at all, and that if he were ever to have a childhood, he would have to start having it now, in his forties. Thats what I actually pray for. The little boy didn't know why he loved Old Rabbit; he just did, and the night he threw it out the car window was the night he learned how to pray. ", 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. he said. He clearly wanted me to pray. 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. You were a child once, too. Photo: Courtesy of Sony Pictures. And now the boy didn't know how to respond. I just try to ask for some sort of affirmation, you know? In 1998, Rogers strikes a friendship with Lloyd Vogel, a self-absorbed, embittered journalist who is assigned to interview him for the magazine Esquire. What I'm buying is a ticket to the fucking Lotto. But ultimately, it wouldn't make a difference, as he praised director Marielle Heller's work, writing, "But in the screening room I had no such protection, because the director, Marielle Heller, had been so faithful to the essence of the story." Fred Rogers (Tom Hanks) probes the state-of-mind of his interviewer, Lloyd Vogel (Matthew Rhys) Somehow, the loss of Mr. Rogers, a thoroughly decent man who preached a gospel of kindness to generations of children, aches much more in a social and political landscape awash in anger and pain (and "leadership" that sets that tone). Here's what readers learned about Mister Rogers when the piece debuted. His name was Old Rabbit. 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." The doors were open, unlocked, because the house was undergoing a renovation of some kind, but the owners were away, and Mister Rogers's boyhood home was empty of everyone but workmen. Example: It is dangerous to play in the street. 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. Hmmm. TJ: Yeah, yeah. 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. TJ: I think the mediums themselves sort of make us prejudiced against that. No, he had to show it, he had to demonstrate it, and that's how Mister Rogers and the people who work for him eventually got the idea of coming to New York City to visit a woman named Maya Lin. Would you like to tell me about Old Rabbit, Tom?. Every timeless feature, profile, interview, novella - even the ads! He takes a nap every day in the late afternoonjust as he wakes up every morning at five-thirty to read and study and write and pray for the legions who have requested his prayers; just as he goes to bed at nine-thirty at night and sleeps eight hours without interruption. From hair trends to relationship advice, our daily newsletter has everything you need to sound like a person whos on TikTok, even if you arent. . This was not a bad thing, however, because he was in New York, and in New York it's not an insult to be called Mister Fucking Anything. Bill had driven us there, and now, sitting behind the wheel of his red Grand Cherokee, he was full of remonstrance. The journalist-Lloyd . And then my editor, Denise Wills said, Could you try to think of an answer to that question? And I thought about it, then I had to read the story again for the audiobook of this collection of Freds writings and sayings. But that is rather missing the point. The film is centered on a writer for Esquire, a men's magazine with an arch sensibility, who is assigned, against his will, to write a feature story on Mr. Rogers as part of an edition on American heroes. ESQ: Another interesting thing in your piece is how you talk about how theres still a hunger for spreading goodness in the world. They are boxers, egg-colored, and to rid himself of them he bends at the waist, and stands on one leg, and hops, and lifts one knee toward his chest and then the other and then Mister Rogers has no clothes on. He woke up in the morning and prayed, and wrote, and prayed for people. . I said sure, hung up, and realized I didnt exactly catch where in Bryant Parkanother New York capital of constant, nightmarish pedestrian overflow. By subscribing to this BDG newsletter, you agree to our. Lloyd Vogel (Matthew Rhys) is an award-winning writer for Esquire who is nonplussed and annoyed when his editor assigns him to write a profile on Fred Rogers , pastor and star of the hit children's series Mister Rogers' Neighborhood. "Oh, hello, my dear," he said when he picked it up, and then he said that he had a visitor, someone who wanted to learn more about the Neighborhood. He prayed every day of his life. "It's not a performance. Did you have any special friends growing up? "Oh, heavens no, Tom! February 14, 2014. 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? And I called Joanne [Rogers] after that and said, What do you think about that? And she was like, You know, Fred would never represent that. That seems so obvious, but I think to a lot of people its not obvious because I think that the temptation of being able to think that yelling at somebody on the street, youre somehow striking a blow. A distraction itself was dangerous. After I watched the walkthroughand was somehow briefly enlisted in fashion-show-planning service as the only idle body in sightwe sat down on a couch in the middle of all the swirling fashion-show-planners, and talked about Fred Rogers, what he left behind, and what we do now. The character of the writer in the movie, Lloyd Vogel, is not amused. A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood fact check reveals that Lloyd's wife Andrea is mostly fictional as well. And I dont know which take they use, but it was hard for Tom to do that. She weighed 280 pounds, and Mister Rogers weighed 143. 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. "Rephrase the idea, bearing in mind that preschoolers cannot yet . Now he was stepping in front of the camera as Mister Rogers, and he wanted to do things right, and whatever he did right, he wanted to repeat. We may earn a commission from these links. What's more, it's based on a true story, with a few of the names changed. He was thunderstruck. He moved his hand from her wrist to her palm and extended his other hand to me. He was a child, once, too, and so one day I asked him if I could go with him back to Latrobe. Sometimes, ophthalmologists have to take care of the eyes of children, and some children get very scared, because children know that their world disappears when their eyes close, and they can be afraid that the ophthalmologists will make their eyes close forever. Do you know that about yourself? When I handed him back the phone, he said, "Bye, my dear," and hung up and curled on the couch like a cat, with his bare calves swirled underneath him and one of his hands gripping his ankle, so that he looked as languorous as an odalisque. At work the next day, Lloyd plays off his shiner as the result of a softball injury and very reluctantly takes a 400-word profile of Mr. Rogers assigned by his editor at Esquire in an effort to . ", "Old Rabbit. In 2011 Michelle . "Roy Rogers is done. "Fred, they're not home. But how could Mister Rogers show little becoming big, and vice versa? "I'm done. 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. When I handed him back the phone, he said, Bye, my dear, and hung up and curled on the couch like a cat, with his bare calves swirled underneath him and one of his hands gripping his ankle, so that he looked as languorous as an odalisque. What is grace? It beautifully illustrates the story of the hard-edged investigative journalist - Lloyd Vogel - who believes everything in life has an ugly side. Hate is such a strong word to use so lightly. It depicts Lloyd Vogel (Rhys), a troubled journalist for Esquire who is assigned to profile television icon Fred Rogers (Hanks). Tick, Tick . Instead, the plot focuses on the real-life friendship between Rogers and cynical journalist Tom Junod (renamed Lloyd Vogel in the movie and portrayed by Matthew Rhys). Would you just take, along with me, ten seconds to think of the people who have helped you become who you are.Ten seconds of silence." Until one night, Mister Rogers came to him, in what he calls a visitation"I was dreaming, but I was awake"and offered to teach him how to pray. And so we went to the graveyard. There was nobody home. He finds me, of course, at Penn Station. The first time I met Mister Rogers, he told me a story of how deeply his simple gestures had been felt, and received. 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. He rested his head on a small pillow and kept his eyes closed while he explained that he had bought the apartment thirty years before for $11,000 and kept it for whenever he came to New York on business for the Neighborhood. I asked him because I wanted his intercession.". And so that's what I told him. He is on one knee in front of a little girl who is hoarding, in her arms, a small stuffed animal, sky-blue, a bunny. 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. I do think that if you transported Fred through time from then til now, would he try? He was born with cerebral palsy. And when I read that, I realized that what I was looking for was really unavoidable and obvious. "Oh, Mister Rogers, thank you for my childhood." ESQ: So its like we dont knowwith the popular mediums we have nowhow to show kindness or come up to each other. "A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood" is more or less the story of how an Esquire article comes into being. "Oh, I just knew that whenever you see a little boy carrying something like that, it means that he wants to show people that he's strong on the outside. He has spent thirty-one years imagining and reimagining those wallsthe walls that have both penned him in and set him free. 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." 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. Mister Rogers didn't leave, though. This article was originally published in the November 1998 issue. Her name was Deb. There are some stories we can analyze all we want, but sometimes there are stories in which, no matter how much we pick them apart, what's on the surface for us to appreciate is more . he asked her, and when she said yes, he said, "Oh, thank you, my dear." ", Deb stiffened for a second, and she let out a breath, and her color got deeper. I took it and then put my hand around her free hand. And that always struck me as perverse. Once upon a time, a long time ago, a man took off his jacket and put on a sweater. Put my hand around her free hand I realized that what I was with him upon a,... 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