At first, the boy was made very nervous by the thought that Mister Rogers was visiting him. Junod's on-screen identity, Lloyd Vogel, is also a major player in connecting the audience to Mister Rogers and the film. 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. Mr. Rogers, fully aware of this, still invites . 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. 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." Would you like to tell me about Old Rabbit, Tom?. 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. Maybe it was something he needed to hear. TJ: Okay, so theres that scene in the beginning of the movie where hes zipping up his sweater. 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." ESQ: Have the past two months been fulfilling for you? It's not a good word. Second mook: "Fuck that. Plot. 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. Koko was much bigger than Mister Rogers. 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. What is grace? 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. And so when he threw Old Rabbit out the car window the next time, it was gone for good. I said sure, hung up, and realized I didnt exactly catch where in Bryant Parkanother New York capital of constant, nightmarish pedestrian overflow. 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 . '", In fact, Junod's current project is a book about his relationship to his father, Lou Junod. He had been on television before, but only as the voices and movements of puppets, on a program called The Children's Corner. He doesn't even know. The film is based on a true story, though Rhys plays fictional journalist Lloyd Vogel, who was created to help tell Rogers' story. "Can I take your picture, Tom?" I was okay with Lloyd Vogel with bunny ears. Tom Junod / Lloyd Vogel experiences this first hand as he tries to get Mr. Rogers to come "out of character". . "A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood" is more or less the story of how an Esquire article comes into being. Bill had driven us there, and now, sitting behind the wheel of his red Grand Cherokee, he was full of remonstrance. And its all in there. 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. A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood (opens Nov. 22) tells the story of one writer's experience profiling Fred Rogers, otherwise known as Mister Rogers, the host of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood.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 . He thought about it for a second, then said, by way of agreement, "Okay, thentomorrow, Tom, I'll show you childhood." February 14, 2014. And I just think that its a trap; I think its false. New Friends.". It's just a meeting of friends," he said. I asked him because I wanted his intercession.". 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]. . He was wearing beige pants, a blue dress shirt, a tie, dark socks, a pair of dark-blue boating sneakers, and a purple, zippered cardigan. 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." 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! Last week, Junod was in New York to walk in a charity fashion show for his alma mater, SUNY Albany, so I tried to get a hold of him for an interview about his Esquire story and A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood. And that always struck me as perverse. The little boy with the big sword did not watch Mister Rogers. 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. "Rephrase the idea, bearing in mind that preschoolers cannot yet . 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 was not his fault. Heres Our Review Of Cocaine Bear: Oh Hell Yes! Id like to take your picture. It beautifully illustrates the story of the hard-edged investigative journalist - Lloyd Vogel - who believes everything in life has an ugly side. 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 . 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. 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 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. But in answer to your question, I mean there are all sorts of ways to be helpful and be of service. A Beautiful Day in the . And so in Penn Station, where he was surrounded by men and women and children, he had this power, like a comic-book superhero who absorbs the energy of others until he bursts out of his shirt. The shootings took place in West Paducah, Kentucky, and when Mister Rogers heard about them, he said, "Oh, wouldn't the world be a different place if he had said, 'I'm going to do something really little tomorrow,'" and he decided to dedicate a week of the Neighborhood to the theme "Little and Big." "I'm done. TJ: Thats a great question. And he had a relationship with a lot of people." His personal story is changed too. The place was drab and dim, with the smell of stalled air and a stain of daguerreotype sunlight on its closed, slatted blinds, and Mister Rogers looked so at home in its gloomy familiarity that I thought he was going to fall back asleep when suddenly the phone rang, startling him. Is Lloyd Vogel a real person? He clearly believed in prayer as a way of life. 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. Fred Rogers isn't even the central figure. Fred turned it on, and as he says now, with plaintive distaste, "there were people throwing pies at one another." Matthew Rhys' character, the cynical Lloyd Vogel, is only loosely inspired by real-life journalist Tom Junod, hence the name change. he asked, and then handed me the phone. He wanted something from the boy, and Mister Rogers never leaves when he wants something from somebody. 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. What is grace? ", "Did your special friend have a name, Tom? So far, its worked pretty well. ESQ: Thats where Im at right now. Architects are people who create big things from the little designs they draw on pieces of paper. He moved his hand from her wrist to her palm and extended his other hand to me. Lloyd is married, has . ", Deb stiffened for a second, and she let out a breath, and her color got deeper. 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. 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. Theres a moment in .css-umdwtv{-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-decoration-thickness:.0625rem;text-decoration-color:#FF3A30;text-underline-offset:0.25rem;color:inherit;-webkit-transition:background 0.4s;transition:background 0.4s;background:linear-gradient(#ffffff, #ffffff 50%, #d5dbe3 50%, #d5dbe3);-webkit-background-size:100% 200%;background-size:100% 200%;}.css-umdwtv:hover{color:#000000;text-decoration-color:border-link-body-hover;-webkit-background-position:100% 100%;background-position:100% 100%;}Can You Say Hero?Tom Junods Esquire profile on Fred Rogers, one of the all-time great magazine storieswhen the writer is searching for the childrens TV icon at the stuffed, panic-attack-palace of Penn Station. Yeah, Mister Rogers is more amazing than you ever knew. [Junod gets up, alerts others to the now-smoking lightbulb, and returns with potato chips to share.]. He was in college. 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. I sat in an old armchair and looked around. And my essay from 1998 is the intro for that. One hundred and forty-three. The Esquire article which brings Lloyd Vogel and Fred Rogers together did actually happen; as did the writer's fruitful transformation off the page. It had more to do with his relationship to his own father, which was a focal point for the film. The first time I met Mister Rogers, he told me a story of how deeply his simple gestures had been felt, and received. "Roy Rogers is done. For my father, everything that was important was visible to the eye. And now the boy didn't know how to respond. 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