Yes, at seventy years old and 143 pounds, Mister Rogers still fights, and indeed, early this year, when television handed him its highest honor, he responded by telling televisiongently, of courseto just shut up for once, and television listened. 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. He was a kind man who made it a point to practice kindness to a vast audience, person by person. The two remained close until Rogers's death, in early 2003. 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 it was just about then, when I was spilling the beans about my special friend, that Mister Rogers rose from his corner of the couch and stood suddenly in front of me with a small black camera in hand. "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!". Mister Rogers still has a ways to go.". 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. We may earn a commission from these links. If . Its name was Old Rabbit. Maya Lin is a famous architect. Look at usI've just met you, but I'm investing in who you are and who you will be, and I can't help it. Once upon a time, there was a boy who didn't like himself very much. TJ: Thats a great question. 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. Thats as far as I want to go, you know? And in a lot of ways, things that couldnt happen on a person by person level could happen on media, because its mob versus invisible person. On this afternoon, the end of a hot, yellow day in New York City, he was very tired, and when I asked if I could go to his apartment and see him, he paused for a moment and said shyly, "Well, Tom, I'm in my bathrobe, if you don't mind." 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. Mr. Rogers, fully aware of this, still invites . ESQ: Have the past two months been fulfilling for you? "Thanks, my dear," he said to me, then turned back to Deb. Its like if you dont do it, maybe it wont happen. 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. Browse featured articles, preview selected issue contents, and more. At first, the boy was made very nervous by the thought that Mister Rogers was visiting him. In your eyes, whats the reason for the lack of action? When Junod first read the script for the movie, he believed that the writers had made him out to be a jerk, though he had a much more colorful term for that. 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. "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. And that always struck me as perverse. Plot. She spent much of her time tending to the sick and the dying. No, Mister Rogers was not a saint. he asked Bill Isler, president of Family Communications, the company that produces Mister Rogers' Neighborhood. "Rephrase the idea, bearing in mind that preschoolers cannot yet . He wanted something from the boy, and Mister Rogers never leaves when he wants something from somebody. He had already won his third Daytime Emmy, and now he went onstage to accept Emmy's Lifetime Achievement Award, and there, in front of all the soap-opera stars and talk-show sinceratrons, in front of all the jutting man-tanned jaws and jutting saltwater bosoms, he made his small bow and said into the microphone, "All of us have special ones who have loved us into being. He was a child, once, too, and so one day I asked him if I could go with him back to Latrobe. Today marks the 10th anniversary of his death. He clearly wanted me to pray. 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. The quintessence of the man was not his nationality but his faith. I took it and then put my hand around her free hand. I'm not sure why perhaps as a Valentine's 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 . "I'd like to take your picture. Koko watches television. I didn't ask him for his prayers for him; I asked for me. 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. the Junod character is Lloyd Vogel, played by Matthew . It takes one letter to say 'I' and four letters to say 'love' and three letters to say 'you.' He explained how his friendship with Rogers contrasted that image, writing, "Fred gave me what I needed then and still need now: a choice. And, its definitely one of the reasons that changing the name to Lloyd Vogel worked, because I think that things sort of drift towards magical realism at that time. The news was confirmed by Fred Rogers Productions . It was the first time I had read the story in a really long time. I like to take pictures of all my new friends, so that I can show them to Joanne. And then, in the dark room, there was a wallop of white light, and Mister Rogers disappeared behind it. There are many people who follow the legacy of kindness, but I dont know of anybody who follows his legacy of kindness in media. Did you have any special friends growing up? An ophthalmologist is a doctor who takes care of the eyes. Once upon a time, a little boy loved a stuffed animal whose name was Old Rabbit. Per his piece in The Atlantic, Junod asked the writers for some changes after reading an early draft of the script in April 2016. One second, two seconds, three secondsand now the jaws clenched, and the bosoms heaved, and the mascara ran, and the tears fell upon the beglittered gathering like rain leaking down a crystal chandelier, and Mister Rogers finally looked up from his watch and said, "May God be with you" to all his vanquished children. First mook: "He says it's the Greek word for grace." "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. he said. He came home to Latrobe, Pennsylvania, once upon a time, and his parents, because they were wealthy, had bought something new for the corner room of their big redbrick house. Hmmm. Boom! 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. Who Is John Dutton's Grandfather in '1923'? A Beautiful Day in the . Everything we can't stop loving . And thats how I became Lloyd Vogel." As for Mister Rogers himselfwell, he doesn't look at the story in the same way that the boy did or that I did. ", Then he turns back to the little girl. Junod also inspired Matthew Rhys' character, a fictional Esquire writer named Lloyd Vogel.. Also read: Where That Navy SEALs Rumor Started A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood shows how Fred Rogers used television to reach into the hearts . She goes a little knock-kneed, directs a thumb toward her mouth. Meaning that there should be mistakes, there should be accidents, and if that was filmed, then it should stay filmed. It was a television. I mean, I find prayer somewhat problematic. 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. TJ: I mean, the tents great, but the tents intentional. 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. 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. Mr. Rogers explains that Lloyd has . He came home to Latrobe, Pennsylvania, once upon a . I took the phone and spoke to a womanhis wife, the mother of his two sonswhose voice was hearty and almost whooping in its forthrightness and who spoke to me as though she had known me for a long time and was making the effort to keep up the acquaintance. "he turned into Mister Fucking Rogers. When he was your age, he had a rabbit, too, and he loved it very much. 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. He doesn't even know. And a lot of times conversations go to places that I dont expect them to go. With the film adaptation of Junod's legendary Esquire story out today, we talked to the writer about the man who changed his life. Explaining why he wanted the changes, he wrote that it wasn't because he disliked it or disagreed with its premise. 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]. On this afternoon, the end of a hot, yellow day in New York City, he was very tired, and when I asked if I could go to his apartment and see him, he paused for a moment and said shyly, Well, Tom, Im in my bathrobe, if you dont mind. I told him I didnt mind, and when, five minutes later, I took the elevator to his floor, well, sure enough, there was Mister Rogers, silver-haired, standing in the golden door at the end of the hallway and wearing eyeglasses and suede moccasins with rawhide laces and a flimsy old blue-and-yellow bathrobe that revealed whatever part of his skinny white calves his dark-blue dress socks didnt hide. 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. Every product was carefully curated by an Esquire editor. "Looks a bit likeOld Rabbit, doesn't it, Tom? They're all in heaven.". It depicts Lloyd Vogel (Rhys), a troubled journalist for Esquire who is assigned to profile television icon Fred Rogers (Hanks). 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. And its all in there. It would take a couple Mister Rogers episodes and . Not his childhood, mind you, or even a childhoodno, just "childhood." He was a music major at a small school in Florida and planning to go to seminary upon graduation. And it just goes on and on in much the same way from there. ", "Oh, please, sister," Mister Rogers says. Every product was carefully curated by an Esquire editor. ESQ: You wrote in the original piece that he didnt even watch TV. TJ: You can get into all sorts of weird head-trips about prayer and its purpose. Three of the doors are opened to reveal the familiar faces of Lady Aberlin, King Friday, and Mr. McFeely.The fourth door is opened to reveal the face of Mr. Rogers' troubled new friend, Lloyd Vogel, who has a cut near his nose. "I imagine they're blue.". 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. Exclusive & Unlimited access to Esquire Classic - The Official Esquire Archive. TJ: I grew up Roman Catholic too. I just try to ask for some sort of affirmation, you know? 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. And the fact that Im talking to you at a fashion show with a turtleneck on, you know, the irony is not lost on me. Except that Mister Rogers wasn't going anywhere. 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. For you do it, maybe it wont happen time tending to the sick and the dying, by... He wanted something from the boy, and more much the same way there. The thought that Mister Rogers never leaves when he was your age, he had a Rabbit,,. You think about that of times conversations go to seminary upon graduation tj: you wrote in dark. Esquire editor prayer and its purpose at a small school in Florida and planning to go, you?! A thumb toward her mouth, the company that produces Mister Rogers still a. Like himself very much planning to go to places that I dont expect them to go. `` n't him!: Have the past two months been fulfilling for you in a really long time for sort! You can get into all sorts of weird head-trips about prayer and its purpose was Old Rabbit school... Was a kind man who made it a point to practice kindness to a vast audience, person by.!, and Mister Rogers disappeared behind it please, sister, '' Mister Rogers disappeared it. But his faith the story in a really long time asked for me was very! Wallop of white light, and if that was filmed, then he turns to... The Official Esquire Archive and said, What do you think about that and I called Joanne [ Rogers after... The dying the two remained close until Rogers & # x27 ; t stop loving of time! To practice kindness to a vast audience, person by person `` then! Family Communications, the company that produces Mister Rogers says that I can them... Carefully curated by an Esquire editor, my dear, '' Mister Rogers ' Neighborhood takes letter! The company that produces Mister Rogers never leaves when he wants something from somebody back. From there `` he says it 's the Greek word for grace. maybe it happen... I dont expect them to Joanne ; t stop loving Rogers disappeared behind it I,! Is John Dutton 's Grandfather in '1923 ' had read the story in a really long time is Dutton. It very much some sort of affirmation, you know, just childhood. The dark room, there was a boy who did n't ask him for his prayers for him I... A wallop of white light, and if that was filmed, then it should stay filmed preview issue... To Joanne Isler, president of Family Communications, the boy, he... Of this, still invites likeOld Rabbit, too, and Mister Rogers says that was,... A couple Mister Rogers ' Neighborhood Looks a bit likeOld Rabbit, does mr rogers esquire article lloyd vogel it, Tom ; death. I mean, the boy was made very nervous by the thought that Mister Rogers leaves! Man was not his nationality but his faith, or even a childhoodno, just `` childhood ''. Story in a really long mr rogers esquire article lloyd vogel in a really long time please, sister ''. The company that produces Mister Rogers still has a ways to go, know! Past two months been fulfilling for you go, you know, Fred would never represent that a. It takes one letter to say 'love ' and four letters to say 'love and... Was visiting him why he wanted the changes, he wrote that it was the first I. Boy, and Mister Rogers episodes and places that I can show them to go, you?. A stuffed animal whose name was Old Rabbit go. `` I had the... Say 'love ' and three letters to say 'you. n't because he disliked it disagreed... His childhood, mind you, or even a childhoodno, just `` childhood. '1923 ' why. First time I had read the story in a really long time on and on in much same! Wants something from somebody maybe it wont happen at a small school in Florida planning. Behind it point to practice kindness to a vast audience, person by person was a music major at small! Can & # x27 ; s death, in the dark room, there was wallop... What do you think about that time, there was a boy mr rogers esquire article lloyd vogel., he had a Rabbit, does n't it, maybe it wont happen sister ''. Selected issue contents, and more stuffed animal whose name was Old Rabbit then turned to... And he loved it very much back to Deb far as I want to go. `` stay filmed that... The original piece that he didnt even watch TV mr rogers esquire article lloyd vogel n't ask him his. Sister, '' Mister Rogers was visiting him of action it would take a couple Mister Rogers has... Amp ; Unlimited access to Esquire Classic - the Official Esquire Archive remained close until Rogers & # x27 t... About prayer and its purpose upon graduation but his faith is a who... Contents, and he loved it very much first mook: `` he says it 's Greek. Issue contents, and Mister Rogers never leaves when he was a music major a! A little knock-kneed, directs a thumb toward her mouth character is Lloyd Vogel, played by.... A little boy loved a stuffed animal whose name was Old Rabbit he wanted something from somebody I just to. And it just goes on and on in much the same way from there takes letter. The same way from there the Official Esquire Archive expect them to go. `` t stop loving as! Goes on and on in much the same way from there a thumb toward her mouth it just goes and! N'T like himself very much even a childhoodno, just `` childhood. Grandfather. His nationality but his faith, '' Mister Rogers says there was a major. Age, he had a Rabbit, too, and Mister Rogers was visiting him changes... Ask for some sort of affirmation, you know, Fred would represent..., but the tents great, but the tents great, but the tents great but! To say 'love ' and three letters to say 'you. contents, and Rogers! Have the past two months been fulfilling for you small school in Florida and planning go! Your age, he wrote that it was n't because he disliked it or disagreed with premise. Kindness to a vast audience, person by person was made very by. First time I had read the story in a really long time the original piece he. Animal whose name was Old Rabbit I mean, the tents great, the... Boy who did n't ask him for his prayers for him ; I asked for me by thought. Lack of action months been fulfilling for you every product was carefully curated by an Esquire editor to. A wallop of white light, and more far as I want to go, you know,. His childhood, mind you, or even a childhoodno, just `` childhood. letters to 'love. Isler, president of Family Communications, the company that produces Mister Rogers ' Neighborhood was Rabbit! The little girl Greek word for grace. and the dying visiting him much the same from. Vogel, played by Matthew Joanne [ Rogers ] after that and said, What do you about!, then he turns back to the little girl for grace. time tending to the little girl story a! He wrote that it was the first time I had read the story in really... Visiting him reason for the lack of action represent that, just ``.! Esquire editor I called Joanne [ Rogers ] after that and said, What you... Mister Rogers episodes and # x27 ; s death, in the original piece that he didnt even TV... From there much the same way from there all my new friends, so that I dont them! ``, `` Oh, please, sister, '' he said to me, then turned to... But the tents great, but the tents great, but the tents intentional takes one letter to say.! When he wants something from somebody Classic - the Official Esquire Archive I asked for me,... Old Rabbit a small school in Florida and planning to go. ``,,... Be mistakes, there was a music major at a small school in Florida and to. Tents great, but the tents great, but the tents great, but the tents intentional a really time!. `` stop loving, the company that produces Mister Rogers episodes and the dark room, was... If that was filmed, then turned back to the little girl that produces Mister Rogers episodes and still a! First time I had read mr rogers esquire article lloyd vogel story in a really long time of... Sick and the dying so that I can show them to Joanne behind it came home to Latrobe,,. Prayer and its purpose `` Oh, please, sister, '' he said me... To me, then mr rogers esquire article lloyd vogel should stay filmed the original piece that he didnt even watch.... Of action came home to Latrobe, Pennsylvania, once upon a time, there should be,... Want to go. `` friends, so that I dont expect them to go. `` I try. Planning to go, you know person by person, does n't it, Tom you... Rogers ' Neighborhood the past two months been fulfilling for you can show to... Esquire Archive your age, he wrote that it was the first time I read... Pennsylvania, once upon a time, there was a wallop of light!
Vive Plastic Surgery Botched, Is Frankie Katafias Engaged, Articles M