But I mean, Fred and my dad could not have been more different. TJ: You can get into all sorts of weird head-trips about prayer and its purpose. 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. 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. November 22, 2019 10:24 AM EST. He did the same thing the next day, and then the nextuntil he had done the same things, those things, 865 times, at the beginning of 865 television programs, over a span of thirty-one years. 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. What's more, it's based on a true story, with a few of the names changed. If somebody had said five years ago, that I was going to be spending the months in October and November 2019 sort of speaking for Fred Rogersyeah, right. He woke up in the morning and prayed, and wrote, and prayed for people. It's his natural instinct to try and take Mister . The spirit of Mister Rogers counseled her to forgive the insults, and after she told me her story in the morning, I called Fred. There are many people who follow the legacy of kindness, but I dont know of anybody who follows his legacy of kindness in media. "But Mister Rogers, I can't pray," Joybubbles said, "because every time I try to pray, I forget the words. ", Deb stiffened for a second, and she let out a breath, and her color got deeper. Her name was Deb. Photo: Courtesy of Sony Pictures. Today marks the 10th anniversary of his death. 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. he asked. Ive had people say, I know a lot of people who are really kind, but theyre just not media people, so no one knows about their kindness. I mean, the point is that Fred was a media person, and he did have a platform, and he spoke to an extremely large audience that he made into an even larger audience. It was late in the day, and the train was crowded with children who were going home from school. 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. He was not a dogmatic person, but he was dogmatic about thatthat media should not be used as a distraction. 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. At first, I chalked this up to some Neighborhood of Make-Believe voodoo energy, but now I have a legit answer. 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. Yeah, Mister Rogers is more amazing than you ever knew. In fact, when the little boy grew up to be a teenager, he would get so mad at himself that he would hit himself, hard, with his own fists and tell his mother, on the computer he used for a mouth, that he didn't want to live anymore, for he was sure that God didn't like what was inside him any more than he did. I dont know if Im ever going to be as good at the active devotion whereas Fred would like me or us to be. TJ: Thats a great question. 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. Tom Junod's "Can You Say . I'll let y'all know. The little boy with the big sword did not watch Mister Rogers. 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. "No, you're not," she says. There was nobody home. He thought about it for a second, then said, by way of agreement, "Okay, thentomorrow, Tom, I'll show you childhood." And now the boy didn't know how to respond. "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. Where is Fred?" 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. But when I did my first draft for the The Atlantic, I wrote that I still dont know what Fred wants from me, or wants from us. Freds favorite saying from all of literature was, That which is essential is invisible to the eye, from The Little Prince. Thats as far as I want to go, you know? During his early conversations with Mr. Rogers, Lloyd is visibly disconcerted, even disturbed . I'm not certain; all I know is that my heart felt like a spike, and then, in that room, it opened and felt like an umbrella. With the film adaptation of Junod's legendary Esquire story out today, we talked to the writer about the man who changed his life. "Oh, I don't know, Fred," she said. But do you think there will be one? Every issue Esquire has ever published, since 1933. .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. Enjoy a year of unlimited access to The Atlanticincluding every story on our site and app, subscriber newsletters, and more. Three died, and they were still children, almost. ", The next afternoon, I went to his office in Pittsburgh. Except for people who are on the new-age end of it. I closed the door and sat back down. It is Vogeland, by extension, uswho grows as a result. After a while, Margy just rolled her eyes and gave up, because it's always like this with Mister Rogers, because the thing that people don't understand about him is that he's greedy for thisgreedy for the grace that people offer him. Only it ends up more than 20 times that long, as he . My personal favorite piece of the story: Junod describes meeting Mr. Rogers in person for the first time, THE FIRST TIME I CALLED MISTER ROGERS on the telephone, I woke him up from his nap. His name was Old Rabbit. He would grow up to become a great prayer, this little boy, but only intermittently, only fitfully, praying only when fear and desperation drove him to it, and the night he threw Old Rabbit into the darkness was the night that set the pattern, the night that taught him how. 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 film's protagonist is journalist Lloyd Vogel (Matthew Rhys), a cynic who is assigned by his . It takes one letter to say 'I' and four letters to say 'love' and three letters to say 'you.'. Junod had hoped the changes would bring protection, as he wrote, "I had counted on the plots many departures from my life to insulate me from the emotional effect of seeing some version of myself up there." Once upon a time, there was a boy who didn't like himself very much. Mr. Rogers, fully aware of this, still invites . I sat in an old armchair and looked around. Your Privacy Choices: Opt Out of Sale/Targeted Ads. Everything we can't stop loving . Did you have any special friends growing up? If we wanted to go into the house, we should have called first. 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. 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. 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. But in 1998, when an Esquire magazine reporter named Lloyd Vogel is assigned to write a short tribute to Rogers for a special issue about heroes, the reporter's skeptical nature leads him to . 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 . It was a television. I mean, one of the great surprises of my life is doing this. I mean, if that was Tom Junod with bunny ears, I dont know how I would have responded. That temptation is really large because its so easy. 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. The ophthalmologists did not want to scare children, so they asked Mister Rogers for help, and Mister Rogers agreed to write a chapter for a book the ophthalmologists were putting togethera chapter about what other ophthalmologists could do to calm the children who came to their offices. He wanted something from the boy, and Mister Rogers never leaves when he wants something from somebody. And what did Fred want from me? By subscribing to this BDG newsletter, you agree to our. I was okay with Lloyd Vogel with bunny ears. And so when he threw Old Rabbit out the car window the next time, it was gone for good. He was a music major at a small school in Florida and planning to go to seminary upon graduation. "Will you be with me when I die?" The editor isn't looking for a cynical unpacking or a scathing expose, like Lloyd's used to writing; just 400 words that give a wee bit of insight to the man behind that (in Lloyd's words) "hokey kids' show." Junod has stated that his encounter with Rogers changed his perspective on life. Oh, and I'll bet the two of you were together since he was a very young rabbit. ESQ: Another interesting thing in your piece is how you talk about how theres still a hunger for spreading goodness in the world. 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. Fred Rogers isn't even the central figure. Once upon a time, a man named Fred Rogers decided that he wanted to live in heaven. I'm glad I know that. It would take a couple Mister Rogers episodes and . ESQ: So its like we dont knowwith the popular mediums we have nowhow to show kindness or come up to each other. ESQUIRE: In your Atlantic piece, you talk about how theres no true successor to Mister Rogers. 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