And I just think that its a trap; I think its false. "Looks a bit likeOld Rabbit, doesn't it, Tom? For my father, everything that was important was visible to the eye. His personal story is changed too. Mister Rogers recorded 20 episodes of a show aimed at adults titled "Old Friends . 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. It gradually dawns on Tom/Lloyd, that the Mr. Rogers in front of the camera is the . Did you have any special friends growing up?, Maybe a puppet, or a special toy, or maybe just a stuffed animal you loved very much. And all the people who made this house special to me are not here, anyway. The boy had always been prayed for. He just waited patiently, and when the boy came back, Mister Rogers talked to him, and then he made his request. ESQ: You wrote in the original piece that he didnt even watch TV. "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. TJ: I mean, the tents great, but the tents intentional. 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 . He finds me, of course, at Penn Station. "It's not a performance. The revolution he starteda half hour a day, five days a weekit wasn't enough, it didn't spread, and so, forced to fight his battles alone, Mister Rogers is losing, as we all are losing. I closed the door and sat back down. "Oh, heavens no, Tom! He clearly wanted me to pray. 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? 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? Who wrote the Esquire article about Mr Rogers? 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. He can't define it. Maybe it was something he needed to hear. 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. He was a music major at a small school in Florida and planning to go to seminary upon graduation. This has happened so many times that Mister Rogers has come to see that number as a gift, as a destiny fulfilled, because, as he says, "the number 143 means 'I love you.' "Thanks, my dear," he said to me, then turned back to Deb. It's just a meeting of friends," he said. The boy had always been the object of prayer, and now he was being asked to pray for Mister Rogers, and although at first he didn't know if he could do it, he said he would, he said he'd try, and ever since then he keeps Mister Rogers in his prayers and doesn't talk about wanting to die anymore, because he figures Mister Rogers is close to God, and if Mister Rogers likes him, that must mean God likes him, too. 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 . The boy had never spoken, until one day he said, "X the Owl," which is the name of one of Mister Rogers's puppets, and he had never looked his father in the eye until one day his father had said, "Let's go to the Neighborhood of Make-Believe," and now the boy is speaking and reading, and the father has come to thank Mister Rogers for saving his son's life.And by this time, well, it's nine-thirty in the morning, time for Mister Rogers to take off his jacket and his shoes and put on his sweater and his sneakers and start taping another visit to the Neighborhood. Junod is personally present . While the film does look at the burgeoning friendship between Rogers (Tom Hanks) and writer Lloyd Vogel (Matthew Rhys), it focuses primarily on Vogel's personal life and how much it has been impacted by this newfound friendship. Margy couldn't stop them, and she couldn't stop him. Appearance, presentation, looks. "he turned into Mister Fucking Rogers. 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. 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. esquire article. No, Mister Rogers was not a saint. The little boy with the big sword did not watch Mister Rogers. Yeah, he would. It has all 865 programs, in both color and black and white, and for two months this past spring, Joybubbles went to the library every day for ten hours and watched the Neighborhood's every episode, plus specialsor, since he is blind, listened to every episode, imagined every episode. ESQ: I wanted to ask you about that nightmare scene [where Lloyd Vogel, the character loosely based on Junod, dreams that he's a character in the Neighborhood of Make-Believe]. (2021, directed . TJ: I think you try to put it together in one person. Once upon a time, a long time ago, a man took off his jacket and put on a sweater. Directed by 40-year old director Marielle Heller, the movie stars Tom Hanks, already known for his kindness, as Fred Rogers, and Matthew Rhys as Lloyd Vogel. He finds me, because that's what Mister Rogers doeshe looks, and then he finds. 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. Fred was all person by person. I mean, he was in favor of thatmedia should be human. I n early 1998, Tom Junod received an assignment that was outside his wheelhouse. It's based on a real-life 1998 Esquire article by Tom Junod, but almost everything in the movie is fictional, except for the wisest, kindest, most penetrating and insightful things Mr. Rogers says in the movie. 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. A woman was with him, sitting in a big chair. 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. TJ: I mean, I never . 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. Second mook: "Fuck that. It means that you can think but sometimes can't walk, or even talk. 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. His name was Old Rabbit., Old Rabbit. 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. On this day, however, he is premature by a considerable extent, and so Margy, who has been with Mister Rogers since 1983because nobody who works for Mister Rogers ever leaves the Neighborhoodcomes running over, papers in hand, and says, "Not so fast there, buster. We were heading back to his apartment in a taxi when I asked him what he had said. 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). The hard-hitting journalist reluctantly takes an assignment to write a profile story about the cherished TV icon for a special 1998 "Heroes" issue of Esquire . "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. Im not sure about it. He explained how his friendship with Rogers contrasted that image, writing, "Fred gave me what I needed then and still need now: a choice. Once upon a time, Mister Rogers went to New York City and got caught in the rain. Or do you take elements of what you see of the best men in your life, and try and put it together into one person? "Would you lead us? And so the next morning, we swam together, and then he put on his boxer shorts and the dark socks, and the T-shirt, and the gray trousers, and the belt, and then the white dress shirt and the black bow tie and the gray suit jacket, and about two hours later we were pulling up to the big brick house on Weldon Street in Latrobe, and Mister Rogers was thinking about going inside. 85+ Years of outstanding fiction from world-renowned authors. First mook: "Looks like you're gonna have to break down and buy a dictionary." 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. 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. The first time I met Mister Rogers, he told me a story of how deeply his simple gestures had been felt, and received. Im not sure why perhaps as a Valentines gift to all of us or to make up for the guy who yesterday wrote that men who play with LEGOs are not real men but last night Esquire made one of the best profiles it (or anyone else) has ever published, Tom Junods 1998 profile of Mr. Rogers, available online. You know that they shot it with like the original cameras. A member of Family Communications and the creator of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood , Rogers was known to young children as Mister Rogers and adored nationally for his gentle demeanor. And so the change is made, and the taping resumes, and this is how it goes all day, a life unfolding within a clasp of unfathomable governance, and once, when I lose sight of him, I ask Margy Whitmer where he is, and she says, "Right over your shoulder, where he always is," and when I turn around, Mister Rogers is facing me, child-stealthy, with a small black camera in his hand, to take another picture for the album that he will give me when I take my leave of him. Lloyd decides to treat the profile as an investigation to find out if Mr. Rogers is just a character for the . .css-gk9meg{display:block;font-family:Lausanne,Arial,sans-serif;font-weight:normal;margin-bottom:0;margin-top:0;padding-top:0.25rem;-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}@media (any-hover: hover){.css-gk9meg:hover{color:link-hover;}}@media(max-width: 48rem){.css-gk9meg{font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.15;margin-bottom:0.25rem;}}@media(min-width: 40.625rem){.css-gk9meg{font-size:1rem;line-height:1.2;margin-bottom:0.625rem;}}@media(min-width: 64rem){.css-gk9meg{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.2;}}@media(min-width: 73.75rem){.css-gk9meg{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.2;}}Facts You Didn't Know About That '70s Show, The Cast of 'The Mandalorian' in Real Life, 'The Mandalorian' Season 3, Episode 1 Recap, 'The Mandalorian' Season 3 is About to Commence, The Underworld Crossover of the Century Is Coming. Mr. Rogers was around when I was a child. "This man's name is Tom. Fred Rogers isn't even the central figure. "No, you're not," she says. There are many people who follow the legacy of kindness, but I dont know of anybody who follows his legacy of kindness in media. You were a child once, too. She goes a little knock-kneed, directs a thumb toward her mouth. She had curls in her hair and stars at the centers of her eyes. Bill had driven us there, and now, sitting behind the wheel of his red Grand Cherokee, he was full of remonstrance. "Do you think we can go in?" She was a minister at Fred Rogers's church. If Mister Rogers can tell me how to read that clock, I'll watch his show every day for a year"that's what someone in the crowd said while watching Mister Rogers and Maya Lin crane their necks at Maya Lin's big fancy clock, but it didn't even matter whether Mister Rogers could read the clock or not, because every time he looked at it, with the television cameras on him, he leaned back from . "Oh, that's a nice name," Mister Rogers says, and then goes to the Thirty-fourth Street escalator to climb it one last time for the cameras. He got out of the car, and, moving as quickly as he had moved to the door of his house, he stepped up a small hill to the door of a large gray mausoleum, a huge structure built for six, with a slightly peaked roof, and bronze doors, and angels living in the stained glass. I'll let y'all know. I mean, he's sort of a stand-in for all of the people that Fred Rogers had a relationship with. Heaven is the place where good people go when they die, but this man, Fred Rogers, didn't want to go to heaven; he wanted to live in heaven, here, now, in this world, and so one day, when he was talking about all the people he had loved in this life, he looked at me and said, "The connections we make in the course of a lifemaybe that's what heaven is, Tom. "If Mister Fucking Rogers can tell me how to read that fucking clock, I'll watch his show every day for a fucking year"that's what someone in the crowd said while watching Mister Rogers and Maya Lin crane their necks at Maya Lin's big fancy clock, but it didn't even matter whether Mister Rogers could read the clock or not, because every time he looked at it, with the television cameras on him, he leaned back from his waist and opened his mouth wide with astonishment, like someone trying to catch a peanut he had tossed into the air, until it became clear that Mister Rogers could show that he was astonished all day if he had to, or even forever, because Mister Rogers lives in a state of astonishment, and the astonishment he showed when he looked at the clock was the same astonishment he showed when peopleabsolute strangerswalked up to him and fed his hungry ear with their whispers, and he turned to me, with an open, abashed mouth, and said, "Oh, Tom, if you could only hear the stories I hear!". 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