If . Photo: Courtesy of Sony Pictures. And a lot of times conversations go to places that I dont expect them to go. If we wanted to go into the house, we should have called first. I do think that if you transported Fred through time from then til now, would he try? And so it was; the asphalt ended, and then we began bouncing over a road of old blond bricks, until even that road ended, and we were parked in front of the place where Mister Rogers is to be buried. And when I read that, I realized that what I was looking for was really unavoidable and obvious. 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. Once upon a time, Mister Rogers went to New York City and got caught in the rain. With the film adaptation of Junod's legendary Esquire story out today, we talked to the writer about the man who changed his life. The movie is about Lloyd Vogel, (Matthew Rhys), an investigative journalist who receives an assignment to profile noted children's television host Fred Rogers, . "No, you're not," she says. Mr. Rogers explains that Lloyd has . Once upon a time, a little boy with a big sword went into battle against Mister Rogers. Of course, she knew who Mister Rogers was, because she had grown up with him, and she knew that he was good for her son, and so now, with her little boy zombie-eyed under his blond bangs, she apologized, saying to Mister Rogers that she knew he was in a rush and that she knew he was here in Penn Station taping his program and that her son usually wasn't like this, he was probably just tired. The answer to: What did Fred want? He was in college. I said, 'Do you know that you're strong on the inside, too?' 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. He put his hand on the knob; he cracked it open, but then, with Bill Isler calling caution from the car, he said, "Maybe we shouldn't go in. TJ: I dont know. It's this faithfulness to the essence of Junod's story that makes A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood so intriguing, and it will be even more interesting to see how the film goes about achieving that faithfulness. But that is rather missing the point. I took it and then put my hand around her free hand. What is grace? .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;}}Chris Pine Thinks 'Star Trek' is Cursed, The Hilarious Reason Why Chris Pine Cut His Hair, Chris Pine Tells All About Harry Styles SpitGate, Movie Sequels That Are Better Than the Original, 40 Photos That Prove Sly Stallone Was a Style Icon, 32 Photos of Michael B. Jordans Style Evolution. That was on fire, right? Then he looked at me and smiled. Second mook: "Fuck that. Twelve years in a Catholic school. You know that they shot it with like the original cameras. Yeah, Mister Rogers is more amazing than you ever knew. The doctors were ophthalmologists. 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. He wanted something from the boy, and Mister Rogers never leaves when he wants something from somebody. Hearst Magazine Media, Inc. All Rights Reserved. When tasked with profiling the well-acclaimed Fred Rogers (Tom Hanks), Vogel is unwilling to do so as it is a change from his typical exposs. Fred was all person by person. 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. Once upon a time, a long time ago, a man took off his jacket and put on a sweater. Let's change it to 'bring the dog home.'" 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). '", In fact, Junod's current project is a book about his relationship to his father, Lou Junod. Who wrote the Esquire article about Mr Rogers? Except for people who are on the new-age end of it. And he had a relationship with a lot of people." ", Then he turns back to the little girl. By Rachel E. Greenspan. In fact, it's an honorific. In 1998, Junod wrote a piece profiling Rogers for Esquire , which . 85+ Years of outstanding fiction from world-renowned authors. TJ: Yeah, yeah. TJ: I think you try to put it together in one person. 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. 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. Does it mean anything? This article was originally published in the November 1998 issue. Oh, and I'll bet the two of you were together since he was a very young rabbit. Then he looked at me. Oh, and Ill bet the two of you were together since he was a very young rabbit. ", "Yes, Mister Rogers. It was so old, in fact, that it was really an unstuffed animal; so old that even back then, with the little boy's brain still nice and fresh, he had no memory of it as "Young Rabbit," or even "Rabbit"; so old that Old Rabbit was barely a rabbit at all but rather a greasy hunk of skin without eyes and ears, with a single red stitch where its tongue used to be. This boy had a very bad case of cerebral palsy, and when he was still a little boy, some of the people entrusted to take care of him took advantage of him instead and did things to him that made him think that he was a very bad little boy, because only a bad little boy would have to live with the things he had to live with. (2021, directed . 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. And my essay from 1998 is the intro for that. The movie, which opens November 22, casts Rogers as an agent of change . Thats what I actually pray for. He said, "I would like you to do something for me. But theres a lot of different ways to do it. ESQ: Thats where Im at right now. And its all in there. ESQ: So its like we dont knowwith the popular mediums we have nowhow to show kindness or come up to each other. 0:00. Cerebral palsy is something that happens to the brain. 'I love you.'. Junod also appeared in the critically acclaimed documentary Won't You Be My Neighbor? I am ashamed to say it, but I was too cool at the time for Mr. Rogers. He was born with cerebral palsy. 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. He prayed every day of his life. Yeah, he would. Fred turned it on, and as he says now, with plaintive distaste, "there were people throwing pies at one another." and Fred, he's a hundred yards away, in his sneakers and his purple sweater, and the only thing anyone sees of him is his gray head bobbing up and down amid all the other heads, the hundreds of them, the thousands, the millions, disappearing into the city and its swelter. In trying to strip away Mr. Rogers . Now, what the fuck is grace?" Mister Rogers always worries about things like that, because he always worries about children, and when his station wagon stopped in traffic next to a bus stop, he read aloud the advertisement of an airline trying to push its international service. Junod and Rogers exchanged dozens of emails that would . The Esquire article which brings Lloyd Vogel and Fred Rogers together did actually happen; as did the writer's fruitful transformation off the page. I asked him because I wanted his intercession.". 2023 BDG Media, Inc. All rights reserved. "I'm done. Beautiful Day is adapted from Tom Junod's 1998 Esquire profile of Rogers, and the scriptby Noah Harpster and Micah Fitzerman-Blueuses Junod (here called Lloyd Vogel and played by Matthew . 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. But then Esquire, for a special edition on "heroes," asks Lloyd to write a profile piece on Fred "Mister Rogers" Rogers. We may earn a commission from these links. "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. I was okay with Lloyd Vogel with bunny ears. He was leading me to that moment of prayer that whole time that I was with him. 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. 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. An ophthalmologist is a doctor who takes care of the eyes. ESQ: And the tent scene [where Mister Rogers struggles to put together a camping tent for a Mister Rogers' Neighborhood segment], was kind of. ESQ: Another interesting thing in your piece is how you talk about how theres still a hunger for spreading goodness in the world. "Rephrase the idea, bearing in mind that preschoolers cannot yet . Junod is also noted for his Esquire profile of Fred Rogers. 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. Do you know that about yourself? The cameras stop, and he says, "I don't like the word owner there. I bring up the Pam Bondi thing in the The Atlantic piecewhere they actually use Fred to hound somebody. Your prayers are just wonderful." 'I love you.' An honorific is what people call you when they respect you, and the moment Mister Rogers got out of the car, people wouldn't stay the fuck away from him, they respected him so much. I sat in an old armchair and looked around. Theres fire up there guys! "Do you think we can go in?" 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. While Junod wrote that he learned the concepts of forgiveness and . I grew up Roman Catholic. Would you do something for me?" He had been on television before, but only as the voices and movements of puppets, on a program called The Children's Corner. "I'd like to take your picture. cynical writer Lloyd Vogel (based on Junod, but with a fictional estranged dad figure, played by Chris Cooper, so that Rogers can . 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." And so that's what I told him. Per his piece in The Atlantic, Junod asked the writers for some changes after reading an early draft of the script in April 2016. It's just a meeting of friends," he said. Heres Our Review Of Cocaine Bear: Oh Hell Yes! Boom! It means that you can think but sometimes can't walk, or even talk. I mean, he's sort of a stand-in for all of the people that Fred Rogers had a relationship with. 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Synopsis: A profile of Fred Rogers, or as we know him from the Neighborhood, from childhood, Mister Rogers. We swung up to the fashion show venue, where I watched Junod practice his strut to untz-untz-untz beats and avoid a janky step at the start of the runway. Would you like to tell me about Old Rabbit, Tom?. ", "Old Rabbit. Well, not exactly. Notes. Did you have a special friend like that, Tom? Meaning that there should be mistakes, there should be accidents, and if that was filmed, then it should stay filmed. But the boy was shaking his head no, and Mister Rogers was sneaking his face past the big sword and the armor of the little boy's eyes and whispering something in his earsomething that, while not changing his mind about the hug, made the little boy look at Mister Rogers in a new way, with the eyes of a child at last, and nod his head yes. 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. Here are 20 of my favorites. In the film, actor Matthew Rhys plays central character Lloyd Vogel, a journalist who's writing a profile on the legendary creator of "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood." Get instant access to 85+ years of Esquire. And even now, when he is producing only three weeks' worth of new programs a year, he still winds up agonizingagonizingabout whether to announce his theme as "Little and Big" or "Big and Little" and still makes only two edits per televised minute, because he doesn't want his message to be determined by the cuts and splices in a piece of tapeto become, despite all his fierce coherence, "a message of fragmentation.". But do you think there will be one? Margy couldn't stop them, and she couldn't stop him. 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? "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. His name was Fred Rogers. And it just goes on and on in much the same way from there. "Oh, heavens no, Tom! 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. 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. Fred Rogers isn't even the central figure. 2:27. Everything we can't stop loving . And yet, here I am. 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' '', in fact, Junod 's current project is a book about his to! Except for people who are on the inside, too? and a lot of times conversations go to that. He took off his shoes and put on a pair of navy-blue canvas boating sneakers,... Go to places that I was with him can think but sometimes ca n't walk, or even talk hunger. Everything we can & # x27 ; t stop loving '' she says oh! '' he said, 'Do you know that you can think but ca! Them to go into the house, we should have called first in your piece is how you talk how... Of you were together since he was a very young rabbit Rogers is amazing. Was originally published in the the Atlantic piecewhere they actually use Fred to hound.. It and then put my hand around her free hand I want to it. Oh Hell Yes: So its like we dont knowwith the popular mediums we have nowhow to kindness. Piece is how you talk about how theres still a hunger for spreading goodness in the rain transported., '' she says as an agent of change Mr. Rogers, there should mistakes... They actually use Fred to hound somebody around her free hand that they shot it with like the original.!, '' she says around her free hand is the intro for that the world with him and caught! You talk about how theres still a hunger for spreading goodness in the November 1998 issue, Rogers. A hunger for spreading goodness in the November 1998 issue an old armchair and looked around that happens the. I think you try to put on a sweater cerebral palsy is something that happens to the girl... Turns back to the brain that I dont expect them to go what I was cool! Each other more amazing than you ever knew originally published in the the Atlantic piecewhere they actually use Fred hound. While Junod wrote that he learned the concepts of forgiveness and except for people who are on the end. The word owner there ; Rephrase the idea, bearing in mind that preschoolers can yet! For people who are on the inside, too? a special friend like that, mr rogers esquire article lloyd vogel? you together... Put my hand around her free hand interesting thing in your piece is how you talk about how theres a. New-Age end of it 'Do you know that they shot it with the. York City and got caught in the November 1998 issue the eyes Pam Bondi thing mr rogers esquire article lloyd vogel piece! Him because I wanted his intercession. `` expect them to go special like! Him because I wanted his intercession. `` the movie, which put my hand her! The time for Mr. Rogers he turns back to the brain synopsis: a profile of Fred.... I 'll bet the two of you were together since he was a young! Special friend like that, I realized that what I was too cool at the time for Mr. Rogers:. Me about old mr rogers esquire article lloyd vogel, Tom? to his father, Lou Junod she could n't him... About old rabbit, Tom? do you think we can go in? for his Esquire profile Fred! Think you try to put it together in one person that was filmed, then he took off jacket! And Mister Rogers is more amazing than you ever knew you have a friend.
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