JUDY WOODRUFF: Finally: a tribute to an icon.
Fred Rogers hosted almost 900 episodes of
"Mister Rogers' Neighborhood" over 31 seasons
on public broadcasting stations.
The film "A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood"
opens today and explores the friendship that
Rogers forged with a magazine writer.
Jeffrey Brown talked with the stars of that
film, Tom Hanks and Matthew Rhys, in New York.
FRED ROGERS, Television Personality (singing):
It's a beautiful day in this neighborhood,
a beautiful day for a neighbor.
TOM HANKS, Actor (singing): Would you be mine?
JEFFREY BROWN: Tom Hanks has morphed into
many characters over his storied film career.
But in Fred Rogers, he says, he met his match.
The film "A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood"
was directed by Marielle Heller.
TOM HANKS: Mari, who is ironclad in her discussions
about what she's going to do, she said, essentially,
you will get a wig.
You will get some eyebrow.
You will get a sweater and blue deck shoes.
The rest of it is up to you.
Do you know what this is?
It's Lloyd.
JEFFREY BROWN: His foil is a driven and cynical
journalist sent to write a profile of Mister
Rogers for "Esquire" magazine, and the film
is based on a true encounter in 1998.
Played by Matthew Rhys, best known for his
role as a Russian spy in "The Americans,"
the journalist is confounded by the sincere...
TOM HANKS: Wonderful to meet you.
So glad you're here, Lloyd.
I'm looking forward to...
JEFFREY BROWN: ... and glacially paced Mister
Rogers.
And, as it turns out, so was the Welsh actor
Rhys.
So did you know Mister Rogers growing up in
Wales?
MATTHEW RHYS, Actor: Not a jot.
JEFFREY BROWN: Not a jot.
MATTHEW RHYS: Nothing.
I dived into YouTube and thought, what's going
on?
I had no idea.
It seemed bizarre to me that this -- I was
like, has he forgotten his lines?
Is that why speak so slow?
This is -- what's happening?
(LAUGHTER)
MATTHEW RHYS: What's been incredible was having
a 3-year-old son.
JEFFREY BROWN: Yes, you have young kids.
MATTHEW RHYS: Yes.
And for him to be the conduit of what it truly
is has been eye-opening and equal part groundbreaking.
JEFFREY BROWN: Rhys would come to see what
millions had: Fred Rogers was utterly unique
in the history of television, an ordained
minister on a mission to reach, teach and
help children be themselves.
He didn't shy from serious subjects, including
divorce, death and racism.
And every child felt he was speaking directly
to him or her.
I asked the two actors about their experience
in Mister Rogers' neighborhood.
For Hanks, as for many of us, one question
lingered: Was this guy for real?
TOM HANKS: What is he trying to sell?
Well, he wasn't trying to sell anything.
He was trying to make little kids feel safe.
So, for me as an actor, it's like, what are
my myriad natural tendencies as a human being
that are going to have to be whipped into
submission, so that I'm not falling into that
same brand of cynical presentation?
There is a DNA that you sort of have to inject
into yourself at the same time that you put
on that version of Batman's cape and cowl,
except it's a red cardigan sweater and blue
deck shoes.
The individual scenes between the two of us,
of which there's five or six, of course, were
exhausting.
They were as physically exhausting and physiologically
exhausting as any scenes I have ever played.
MATTHEW RHYS: Do you consider yourself a hero?
TOM HANKS: I don't think of myself as a hero,
no, not at all.
MATTHEW RHYS: What about Mister Rogers?
Is he a hero?
TOM HANKS: I don't understand the question.
MATTHEW RHYS: Well, there's you, Fred, and
then there's the character you play, Mister
Rogers.
These two men kind of circle each other with
different intentions, but also -- but seemingly
the same tactics of waiting and questioning,
until one either broke or opened up.
JEFFREY BROWN: Rhys' character, here called
Lloyd Vogel, visits the set to interview Fred
Rogers.
But Rogers wants only to know Vogel, to understand
him and his struggles, especially his anger
at a father who abandoned the family long
ago and now seeks reconciliation and forgiveness.
TOM HANKS: If I was going to show you, admit
to you what the first day of shooting was,
you -- I would point out to you how I'm talking
too fast, I'm not being as specific as I need
to, I'm not waiting for -- I'm not really
listening, because I'm kind of, like, petrified.
And think about all the people who loved us
into being.
MATTHEW RHYS: My perspective of you on that
day is completely different.
And you kind of came in with this -- it was
like -- it was like what they said about Rogers.
Everything slowed down, because you didn't
dictate a tempo.
You actually just listened.
And that, in itself, dictates a tempo.
There is this moment I kind of had that, oh,
God, he's got it.
He's got it.
JEFFREY BROWN: With Fred Rogers, there's another
element, because the question was, was he
acting?
So are you acting as Fred Rogers, who's acting
as Mister Rogers?
TOM HANKS: Absolutely.
There is a performance that he was giving.
There was -- there was rules that he was following
that were based on his philosophy on how to
do this.
JEFFREY BROWN: So, who was the real Fred Rogers
or who was the real Mister Rogers?
TOM HANKS: I heard an audiotape.
There was a child psychologist who is one
of his great mentors that he -- that he discussed
everything with in front of -- and they were
talking about trying to come up with an opera
for children.
And this lady had this kind of -- what I think
what we could do is, is the thematic element
of the chorus here with the frog could actually
be a bridge to the original theme of the first
act.
Pause, pause, pause, pause.
And this is Mister Rogers now.
If the frog could have a worry that he brings
-- and these are just people talking.
These are people at work trying to figure
out how to...
(LAUGHTER)
TOM HANKS: This is like a production meeting
that he's going on.
And he's still put that brand of thought to
it.
MATTHEW RHYS: I think, to me, what seemingly
the performance element is only to succeed
in a greater communication to that audience
at which it is aimed.
JEFFREY BROWN: Fred Rogers believed in the
power of television, right, as a tool for
change, a tool for reaching people.
Television hasn't really worked out that way.
TOM HANKS: Well, he didn't change television
on as a technology as an art form, but look
what he created for a half-hour at a time,
extraordinarily wise, smart things that made
children understand the world a little bit
better.
If you only get a half-hour out of that once
a day, I think you're still a half-hour ahead
of the curve.
JEFFREY BROWN: What about in the general culture,
a film like this?
Do you think there is a craving, a need for
Fred Rogers?
TOM HANKS: Don't you think there's some, like,
marketing executive, you know what we got
here?
(LAUGHTER)
TOM HANKS: What we have here is counterprogramming.
MATTHEW RHYS: Yes.
TOM HANKS: You see what I'm saying?
MATTHEW RHYS: I like it.
TOM HANKS: What we're going to do is, we're
going to have a guy with the puppets.
MATTHEW RHYS: Yes.
Oh, that's good.
That's good.
TOM HANKS: We will shoot it in Pittsburgh.
No, I think it can work, if we hit it.
(LAUGHTER)
TOM HANKS: If we hit the counterprogramming
situation.
MATTHEW RHYS: It is like this -- there's an
incredible symphony going on at all times.
And it's in the pause that sometimes the greatest
potency is found.
And I think, if we do that for a small number
of people for a brief moment, so much so the
better.
JEFFREY BROWN: "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood"
ended its television run on PBS in 2001.
Fred Rogers died two years later at age 74.
The new film, "A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood,"
opens today around the country.
For the "PBS NewsHour," I'm Jeffrey Brown
in New York.
JUDY WOODRUFF: A reminder we could sure use
Fred Rogers right now.
I can't wait to see this film.
