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 . Tom Junod / Lloyd Vogel experiences this first hand as he tries to get Mr. Rogers to come "out of character". "Now, Deb, I'd like to ask you a favor," he said. Mister Rogers spots him first, naturally, amidst the swarm of New Yorkers, about the five-hundredth happy coincidence in a life full of them. They just sang. 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. Meaning that there should be mistakes, there should be accidents, and if that was filmed, then it should stay filmed. Her name was Deb. 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. As Joanne Rogers tells Lloyd Vogel in A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, he was loathe to hurt even animals. He knowing what only Fred could do. One hundred and forty-three. He clearly believed in prayer as a way of life. His editor at Esquire asked him to profile Fred Rogers, the beloved television personality and Presbyterian minister. TJ: I mean, I never . He said, "I would like you to do something for me. 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. She was a minister at Fred Rogers's church. Mister Rogers still has a ways to go.". Can I take your picture, Tom? he asked. Nearly every morning of his life, Mister Rogers has gone swimming, and now, here he is, standing in a locker room, seventy years old and as white as the Easter Bunny, rimed with frost wherever he has hair, gnawed pink in the spots where his dry skin has gone to flaking, slightly wattled at the neck, slightly stooped at the shoulder, slightly sunken in the chest, slightly curvy at the hips, slightly pigeoned at the toes, slightly aswing at the fine bobbing nest of himself and yet when he speaks, it is in that voice, his voice, the famous one, the unmistakable one, the televised one, the voice dressed in sweater and sneakers, the soft one, the reassuring one, the curious and expository one, the sly voice that sounds adult to the ears of children and childish to the ears of adults, and what he says, in the midst of all his bobbing nudity, is as understated as it is obvious: "Well, Tom, I guess you've already gotten a deeper glimpse into my daily routine than most people have.". 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. He finds me, because that's what Mister Rogers doeshe looks, and then he finds. 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. Who wrote the article about Mr Rogers in Esquire magazine? Do you see masculinity as different endslike you could be this person or this person? She was very pretty. I do think that if you transported Fred through time from then til now, would he try? "Roy Rogers is done. Over the course of two hours, we see Fred Rogers movingly model a type of humanity for Vogel, who seems mired in anger, disconnected from his own feelings. He is losing, of course. And what did Fred want from me? He was with his producer, Margy Whitmer. The two remained close until Rogers's death, in early 2003. 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. 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. So the first thing he did was rechristen himself "Joybubbles"; the second thing he did was declare himself five years old forever; and the third thing he did was make a pilgrimage to Pittsburgh, where the University of Pittsburgh's Information Sciences Library keeps a Mister Rogers archive. 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 . 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. And so we went to the graveyard. It was late in the day, and the train was crowded with children who were going home from school. 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? I had never prayed like that before, ever. The boy had always been prayed for. 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.' He was a reformer in terms of method. I didn't ask him for his prayers for him; I asked for me. I mean, I find prayer somewhat problematic. Who wrote the Esquire article about Mr Rogers? Ive had people take issue with that. Junod is personally present . Hate is such a strong word to use so lightly. He wears an undershirt, of course, but no mattersoon that's gone, too, as is the belt, as are the beige trousers, until his undershorts stand as the last impediment to his nakedness. 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: And then by Mister Rogers. First mook: "Looks like you're gonna have to break down and buy a dictionary." If they can hate something like that, you wonder how easy it would be for them to hate something more important." The news was confirmed by Fred Rogers Productions . This article was originally published in the November 1998 issue. Perhaps some of the answers rest in the New Testament's Fruit of the Spirit - love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. New Friends.". Then he took off his shoes and put on a pair of sneakers. "But Mister Rogers, I can't pray," Joybubbles said, "because every time I try to pray, I forget the words. TJ: I think you try to put it together in one person. David Murdock is an English instructor at Gadsden State Community College. Hes obviously having trouble zipping up his sweater, its not easy for him, and I know that it took like many, many takes to do that. 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. "Oh, Mister Rogers, thank you for my childhood." It means that you can think but sometimes can't walk, or even talk. What is yours named?". It's Lloyd Vogel, a fictionalized character based on Atlanta writer Tom Junod. 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. Most famous architects are famous for creating big famous buildings, but Maya Lin is more famous for creating big fancy things for people to look at, and in fact, when Mister Rogers had gone to her studio the day before, he looked at the pictures she had drawn of the clock that is now on the ceiling of a place in New York called Penn Station. 2023 BDG Media, Inc. All rights reserved. Browse featured articles, preview selected issue contents, and more. 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. 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. Greek philosophy called for esquire magazine article about mr rogers? 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. Lloyd decides to treat the profile as an investigation to find out if Mr. Rogers is just a character for the . Explore the full November 1998 issue of Esquire. In the movie, Tom Junod's name is changed to Lloyd Vogel. As the film starts, journalist Lloyd Vogel has just welcomed the birth of a newborn baby boy with his wife, Andrea (Susan Kelechi Watson). 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. And he had a relationship with a lot of people." I'm glad I know that. Let's change it to 'bring the dog home.'" 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." 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. "Oh, Mister Rogers, would you please just hug me?" he asked. Is Lloyd Vogel a real person? He was a kind man who made it a point to practice kindness to a vast audience, person by person. He was starting a television program, aimed at children, called Mister Rogers' Neighborhood. She had curls in her hair and stars at the centers of her eyes. TJ: Yeah, they have been. T he movie A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood is structured like an episode of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood. And its all in there. The first time I met Mister Rogers, he told me a story of how deeply his simple gestures had been felt, and received. 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