{"id":63048,"date":"2019-11-07T06:28:20","date_gmt":"2019-11-07T14:28:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/?p=63048"},"modified":"2019-11-07T06:28:20","modified_gmt":"2019-11-07T14:28:20","slug":"exclusive-mister-rogers-chronicler-tom-junod-on-prayer-minutes-of-silence-and-seeing-a-fictionalized-version-of-his-relationship-with-fred-rogers-in-a-beautiful-day-in-the-neighborhood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2019\/11\/exclusive-mister-rogers-chronicler-tom-junod-on-prayer-minutes-of-silence-and-seeing-a-fictionalized-version-of-his-relationship-with-fred-rogers-in-a-beautiful-day-in-the-neighborhood.html","title":{"rendered":"Exclusive: Mister Rogers chronicler Tom Junod on prayer, minutes of silence, and seeing a fictionalized version of his relationship with Fred Rogers in A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood<\/i>"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Fred Rogers, the Presbyterian minister turned children\u2019s TV host who hosted Mister Rogers\u2019 Neighborhood<\/i> for over three decades, is having something of a moment right now.<\/p>\n

Rogers himself passed away in 2003, but two movies have popped up in the past two years that have brought renewed attention to his work and his legacy: last year, Won\u2019t You Be My Neighbor?<\/i> became one of the highest-grossing non-musical, non-nature documentaries of all time; and now, Tom Hanks is playing Rogers in a dramatic film, A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood<\/i>, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in September and is set to open across North America on November 22.<\/p>\n

The new film is based, in part, on \u2018Can You Say\u2026 Hero?<\/a>\u2019, a 1998 Esquire<\/i> article written by Tom Junod \u2014 and unlike the documentary, which explored Rogers\u2019 personal background and the social implications of his work, the new film focuses on Rogers\u2019 relationship with a fictitious journalist (played by Matthew Rhys and loosely based on Junod) and how the journalist finds healing through Rogers\u2019 message of empathy and kindness.<\/p>\n

I had a chance to speak to Junod by phone a few weeks before the new film comes out. What follows is a lightly edited transcript of our conversation.<\/p>\n

\u2013<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t read your article until after I had seen the film. In the film, the character, Lloyd Vogel, is clearly not technically you, but I\u2019ve read that he\u2019s sort of based on you or a version of you, but there\u2019s actually not a lot about you in the article, and the film kind of led me to think that there might be. Can you talk about how involved you were in developing the film, if at all? And to what extent the character in the film might actually resemble you or be based on you, and to what degree he might be sort of purely fictitious?<\/b><\/p>\n

Junod: Yeah, I mean, the story that I wrote is essentially plotless, right? And other than Old Rabbit, I don\u2019t know if there\u2019s any back-story, really, provided at all. It\u2019s all pretty much in the moment. So in order for there to be<\/i> a back-story, Micah [Fitzerman-Blue] and Noah [Harpster], the screenwriters, approached me, and I went out to California and spent two solid days with them, basically, just talking about my life. So in terms of the character, I would say that the character is based on me, even to the extent that\u2013 Last year, I went to the set in Pittsburgh and met with Matthew Rhys, and we talked for a couple of hours, and seeing Matthew on the screen is to realize that when he is playing Lloyd Vogel, he is playing me.<\/p>\n

So there\u2019s definitely aspects of my character and my back-story that are in the movie, and I definitely consulted with the screenwriters and the producers on all of the drafts for the story, but I asked them to change my name for a reason, because some very essential facts, especially those regarding my family, have been changed in the plot. So I had a complicated relationship with my dad, but I never got into a fight with my dad at my sister\u2019s wedding. My wife and I adopted our daughter Nia the same year that Fred died \u2013 Fred died in February 2003, and we adopted Nia in January of 2004 \u2013 whereas Lloyd and Andrea in the movie have a two-year-old son named Gavin. So those things are pretty basic, and that\u2019s what led me to ask for the Tom Junod character to be Lloyd Vogel.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve read other interviews with Mister Rogers where something very similar to what comes up in your article comes up \u2013 his tendency to want to interview the person who is interviewing him<\/i>. So is it safe to assume that these aspects of your life story were something he was aware of?<\/b><\/p>\n

Junod: They were the things that he got to know. We didn\u2019t only meet each other for the story and interact with each other for the story. This past summer I went to my attic and I got an old laptop that had been baking up there for 20 years, and I went to a place that does data recovery and found 70 e-mails from the first year that I knew Fred alone, that were exchanged between Fred and I. Those were 70 e-mails from him, and I\u2019m sure I wrote him 70 in return. But we\u2019d talk about those things. We\u2019d talk about a lot of different things and a lot of different aspects of my life, including my dad. So, yeah, you mentioned that with a lot of people he acted like this, and that has made it kind of easier for me to just say there are some variations in my life and in Lloyd Vogel\u2019s life, but it still sort of represented me, and I look at that character as representative not just of me but of a lot of people that he had those relationships with. I\u2019m certainly not the only one.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a scene where he is praying at his bedside and is mentioning a bunch of different people by name, and I know that he did that, because he told me he did that. He prayed not only for me, he prayed for my wife, he prayed for my niece who was going through some difficult times back then, and he kept open this ministerial relationship with me, but he also kept open a ministerial relationship with a lot of other people as well.<\/p>\n

You mentioned that you were speaking to the screenwriters for a couple of days. How would you compare being interviewed by them to having Fred interview you, as it were, about your personal story?<\/b><\/p>\n

Junod: Well, you know, they\u2019re not Presbyterian ministers! So there\u2019s a difference there. The outcome that they were looking for was a film script. The outcome that Fred was looking for is still a little bit vague to me, but I think ultimately Fred wanted me to see something in myself, maybe something that he<\/i> saw. I know why Micah and Noah interviewed me, and I know why we got along, and I love the script that they wound up writing. But I don\u2019t know exactly why Fred took such an interest in me, and I don\u2019t know of anybody who has had that experience with Fred and knew why Fred took an interest in them, other than that\u2019s kind of what he did. I mean, one of the things that really struck me when I read all the e-mails this summer \u2013 and I was fantastically moved by them, because they brought me back to that time \u2013 but the other thing is that he was tireless when it came to that. So his purposes were somewhat obscure, but I would say that they were obscure to everybody but him. He did what he knew, and kind of worked his magic accordingly.<\/p>\n

What do you make of the fact that the film is<\/i> so much about the journalist who\u2019s covering him? Some people might come to the film expecting a more traditional sort of biopic. Would you even say that Fred is necessarily the main character in the film, or is it perhaps the Lloyd Vogel character \u2013 do you know what I mean? Whose story is it?<\/b><\/p>\n

Junod: I know exactly<\/i> what you mean. I mean, the film doesn\u2019t exist without Fred, but I think that the story that moves the viewer through it is the Lloyd story. So, yeah, you\u2019re right.<\/p>\n

How do you feel about that<\/i>? As one who wrote about Fred and reported on him, do you feel there should have been more<\/i> about Fred in the film? How do you feel about the balance, the mixture of the two?<\/b><\/p>\n

Junod: Two things: Number one, just as a genre, I can\u2019t stand biopics. I think that the percentage of biopics that don\u2019t quite hit the mark is probably greater than the percentage of biopics that do. I can name a handful of disappointing biopics, so I think that avoiding that is probably a wise course, because the intensity of Fred\u2019s life, within his relationships with people, it wasn\u2019t a back-story. And he didn\u2019t talk about himself. He really didn\u2019t. He took me to Latrobe, and he showed me his parents\u2019 grave \u2013 he showed me his family mausoleum \u2013 and it felt like he talked about his childhood that much. He was really, in his own really quiet way, he was a demonstrative person, and everything that he did, thought about, to the maximum extent of his beliefs, were found in his relationships with people, not in his back-story. So I think that they made a really wise choice, when it comes to this movie. The other thing is that there is \u2013 and nobody of course knew this when they were in pre-production for A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood<\/i> \u2013 but Won\u2019t You Be My Neighbor?<\/i> was a brilliant documentary that came out in the summer of 2018, and it sort of serves as a bookend to this movie. It\u2019s the biopic that A Beautiful Day<\/i> isn\u2019t. And I think they work sort of extraordinarily well together.<\/p>\n

I was going to ask about that. You are interviewed in that film as well. Certainly for me, watching the documentary brought up some aspects of Mister Rogers that I was not aware of before \u2013 things that I found intriguing \u2013 and some of those things do not come up in the new film, some things that might have seemed a little odd, like the 143 for example. [Rogers claimed that he had been 143 lbs nearly every day of his adult life, and that the numbers 1, 4, 3 stood for \u2018I Love You\u2019.] Is there anything about Mister Rogers that isn\u2019t<\/i> in the new film that you kind of wish had<\/i> been put in there?<\/b><\/p>\n

Junod: Hmmm, no, because, I mean, meeting Fred was, like, disorienting. The 143 thing, you rubbed your eyes because you couldn\u2019t quite believe it. It seemed like a superpower, you know? And there are so many things that happened in my time with Fred that\u2014 I was continually thrown off-stride, and he seemed continually a step ahead, or a move ahead, and that was my experience with Fred. Would I have liked to see the 143 thing in this movie? I mean, yes and no. Yes, in that I think it\u2019s amazing, but at the same time, the experience of 143 was part and parcel of the experience that is so well documented in the movie that\u2019s so part of its grain, which is of Lloyd being thrown off-stride and being moved very very purposefully by Fred towards a certain end. And to me that\u2019s what the movie is about, and that\u2019s what my experience was about. It wasn\u2019t about the particulars, it was everything.<\/p>\n

In the documentary, you raise the question about whether or not Fred succeeded in changing the world or in getting the world to slow down and so forth. Are these films trying to help achieve or continue his success, or at least work toward the success he was working towards?<\/b><\/p>\n

Junod: I think that they are reminders \u2013 both films \u2013 and you have to ask yourself, \u201cWhy Fred? Why now?\u201d And I think that he is a reminder of so much that we\u2019ve lost. So you can look at that in two ways: You can say, okay, he is a reminder that we have<\/i> lost so much, but he is also a reminder of what can be gained, and what\u2019s good enough. I have an essay on Fred<\/a> coming out in The Atlantic<\/i> \u2013 I guess it\u2019s going to be in their December issue in print, but I think it\u2019s coming out around November 7 online \u2013 but that\u2019s what I wrote about, is this question of \u201cWhy Fred? Why now?\u201d And how would Fred respond to Twitter, and how would Fred respond to the political polarization, and all those questions. So those are the things I take on in that essay. But I think the answer is what I just said: the answer is he\u2019s a reminder of what we\u2019ve lost, and he\u2019s also a reminder of what can be gained.<\/p>\n

Do you have a favorite moment in the film \u2013 a moment that really captures what Mister Rogers was all about?<\/b><\/p>\n

Junod: Well, there\u2019s remarkable moments in the film all around. I\u2019ve seen the film twice. When I saw it the first time in the summer, I saw it completely by myself at a screening room in New York, and I was overwhelmed. I was overwhelmed with the experience of it, I was overwhelmed by seeing some version of myself on the screen, I was overwhelmed by being thrown back into that world and being thrown back into who I was back then, so all those things really really hit me super super hard. But I don\u2019t know if I really took in the film as much as I did just recently when I saw the film with an audience, and when I saw the film with an audience, I was struck by how much the film asked of its audience, how quietly audacious it is, and the risks that it takes. And so of all of those things, the thing that really affected me the most is the minute of silence, because not only does the character of Fred ask the character of Lloyd Vogel for a minute of silence, but the character of Fred asks the audience for a minute of silence. And when you see the movie with an audience, you feel each tick of the clock. So just as a feat of moviemaking and interactive moviemaking, that just kind of blew me away.<\/p>\n

The minute of silence was definitely a standout for me, too. Comparing the two films, it seemed to me that the documentary was very concerned with the social effects of the TV show and so forth, but the dramatic film seemed a lot more personal. Does that make sense to you? Is there a difference of emphasis there?<\/b><\/p>\n

Junod: Yes, I think that makes a lot of sense, but I think the thing with Fred is that he really dealt with one person at a time. I think that all of his social goals and objectives were attained one person at a time. So I think that the personal is the foundation of everything that Fred did. That\u2019s what I think the movie really excels at.<\/p>\n

The film is getting a push towards religious audiences through Affirm Films and so forth, and your article ends with the prayer, and there is<\/i> prayer in the film, but do you feel that that element could have been more pronounced in the film? Or how do you feel about its representation in the film?<\/b><\/p>\n

Junod: I knew Fred and talked with Fred a lot over the four years that I knew him, and we corresponded a lot, and his correspondence with me was much more spiritual in nature than my face-to-face discussions with him. But he never proselytized. I don\u2019t think that he ever\u2014 He mentioned God a lot, but he never mentioned \u2014 and I might be not remembering something \u2014 but I don\u2019t remember him ever mentioning Jesus. As far as the spirituality of Fred, the movie is completely, completely representative of that, and accurately representative. And to the question of whether the movie goes there enough, I can\u2019t think of the last movie that shows anybody<\/i> kneeling beside their bed and looking at scripture and saying, \u201cThank you, God.\u201d It\u2019s one of my favorite things in the movie because I think it definitely witnesses to the very essence of Fred\u2019s spirituality and his love for God. So yeah, I think it\u2019s extremely accurate that way.<\/p>\n

\u2014 The photo above shows Tom Junod, Tom Hanks and Matthew Rhys at the world premiere of <\/i>A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood in Toronto. The film comes to theatres across North America November 22.<\/i><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Junod’s 1998 article ‘Can You Say… Hero?’ was the basis for the new film A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood<\/i>, which stars Tom Hanks as Mister Rogers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1116,"featured_media":63051,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[4839,4845,4854,4860,4842,4857,1571,4848,4851],"class_list":["post-63048","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","tag-beautiful-day-in-the-neighborhood","tag-fred-rogers","tag-matthew-rhys","tag-micah-fitzerman-blue","tag-mister-rogers-neighborhood","tag-noah-harpster","tag-tom-hanks","tag-tom-junod","tag-wont-you-be-my-neighbor"],"yoast_head":"\nExclusive: Mister Rogers chronicler Tom Junod on prayer, minutes of silence, and seeing a fictionalized version of his relationship with Fred Rogers in A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Junod's 1998 article 'Can You Say... Hero?' was the basis for the new film A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, which stars Tom Hanks as Mister Rogers.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2019\/11\/exclusive-mister-rogers-chronicler-tom-junod-on-prayer-minutes-of-silence-and-seeing-a-fictionalized-version-of-his-relationship-with-fred-rogers-in-a-beautiful-day-in-the-neighborhood.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Exclusive: Mister Rogers chronicler Tom Junod on prayer, minutes of silence, and seeing a fictionalized version of his relationship with Fred Rogers in A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Junod's 1998 article 'Can You Say... Hero?' was the basis for the new film A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, which stars Tom Hanks as Mister Rogers.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2019\/11\/exclusive-mister-rogers-chronicler-tom-junod-on-prayer-minutes-of-silence-and-seeing-a-fictionalized-version-of-his-relationship-with-fred-rogers-in-a-beautiful-day-in-the-neighborhood.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"FilmChat\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2019-11-07T14:28:20+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/227\/2019\/11\/beautifuldayintheneighborhood-1-a.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"768\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"344\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Peter T. Chattaway\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Peter T. Chattaway\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"14 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2019\/11\/exclusive-mister-rogers-chronicler-tom-junod-on-prayer-minutes-of-silence-and-seeing-a-fictionalized-version-of-his-relationship-with-fred-rogers-in-a-beautiful-day-in-the-neighborhood.html\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2019\/11\/exclusive-mister-rogers-chronicler-tom-junod-on-prayer-minutes-of-silence-and-seeing-a-fictionalized-version-of-his-relationship-with-fred-rogers-in-a-beautiful-day-in-the-neighborhood.html\",\"name\":\"Exclusive: Mister Rogers chronicler Tom Junod on prayer, minutes of silence, and seeing a fictionalized version of his relationship with Fred Rogers in A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2019-11-07T14:28:20+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2019-11-07T14:28:20+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/#\/schema\/person\/5759ddf28b81af08b29eb15b4e071fde\"},\"description\":\"Junod's 1998 article 'Can You Say... Hero?' was the basis for the new film A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, which stars Tom Hanks as Mister Rogers.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2019\/11\/exclusive-mister-rogers-chronicler-tom-junod-on-prayer-minutes-of-silence-and-seeing-a-fictionalized-version-of-his-relationship-with-fred-rogers-in-a-beautiful-day-in-the-neighborhood.html#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2019\/11\/exclusive-mister-rogers-chronicler-tom-junod-on-prayer-minutes-of-silence-and-seeing-a-fictionalized-version-of-his-relationship-with-fred-rogers-in-a-beautiful-day-in-the-neighborhood.html\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2019\/11\/exclusive-mister-rogers-chronicler-tom-junod-on-prayer-minutes-of-silence-and-seeing-a-fictionalized-version-of-his-relationship-with-fred-rogers-in-a-beautiful-day-in-the-neighborhood.html#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Exclusive: Mister Rogers chronicler Tom Junod on prayer, minutes of silence, and seeing a fictionalized version of his relationship with Fred Rogers in A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/\",\"name\":\"FilmChat\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/#\/schema\/person\/5759ddf28b81af08b29eb15b4e071fde\",\"name\":\"Peter T. Chattaway\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/9c4b809df092b410d749a6995bcf4f3e?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/9c4b809df092b410d749a6995bcf4f3e?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Peter T. Chattaway\"},\"description\":\"Peter T. Chattaway was the regular film critic for BC Christian News from 1992 to 2011. In addition to his award-winning film column for that paper, his news and opinion pieces have appeared in such publications as Books & Culture, Christianity Today, Bible Review and the Vancouver Sun. He has also contributed essays to the books Re-Viewing The Passion: Mel Gibson\u2019s Film and Its Critics (Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), Scandalizing Jesus?: Kazantzakis\u2019s The Last Temptation of Christ Fifty Years on (Continuum, 2005) and The Bible in Motion: A Handbook of the Bible and Its Reception in Film (De Gruyter, 2016).\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/author\/peterchattaway\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Exclusive: Mister Rogers chronicler Tom Junod on prayer, minutes of silence, and seeing a fictionalized version of his relationship with Fred Rogers in A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood","description":"Junod's 1998 article 'Can You Say... Hero?' was the basis for the new film A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, which stars Tom Hanks as Mister Rogers.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2019\/11\/exclusive-mister-rogers-chronicler-tom-junod-on-prayer-minutes-of-silence-and-seeing-a-fictionalized-version-of-his-relationship-with-fred-rogers-in-a-beautiful-day-in-the-neighborhood.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Exclusive: Mister Rogers chronicler Tom Junod on prayer, minutes of silence, and seeing a fictionalized version of his relationship with Fred Rogers in A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood","og_description":"Junod's 1998 article 'Can You Say... Hero?' was the basis for the new film A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, which stars Tom Hanks as Mister Rogers.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2019\/11\/exclusive-mister-rogers-chronicler-tom-junod-on-prayer-minutes-of-silence-and-seeing-a-fictionalized-version-of-his-relationship-with-fred-rogers-in-a-beautiful-day-in-the-neighborhood.html","og_site_name":"FilmChat","article_published_time":"2019-11-07T14:28:20+00:00","og_image":[{"width":768,"height":344,"url":"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/227\/2019\/11\/beautifuldayintheneighborhood-1-a.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Peter T. Chattaway","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Peter T. Chattaway","Est. reading time":"14 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2019\/11\/exclusive-mister-rogers-chronicler-tom-junod-on-prayer-minutes-of-silence-and-seeing-a-fictionalized-version-of-his-relationship-with-fred-rogers-in-a-beautiful-day-in-the-neighborhood.html","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2019\/11\/exclusive-mister-rogers-chronicler-tom-junod-on-prayer-minutes-of-silence-and-seeing-a-fictionalized-version-of-his-relationship-with-fred-rogers-in-a-beautiful-day-in-the-neighborhood.html","name":"Exclusive: Mister Rogers chronicler Tom Junod on prayer, minutes of silence, and seeing a fictionalized version of his relationship with Fred Rogers in A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/#website"},"datePublished":"2019-11-07T14:28:20+00:00","dateModified":"2019-11-07T14:28:20+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/#\/schema\/person\/5759ddf28b81af08b29eb15b4e071fde"},"description":"Junod's 1998 article 'Can You Say... Hero?' was the basis for the new film A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, which stars Tom Hanks as Mister Rogers.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2019\/11\/exclusive-mister-rogers-chronicler-tom-junod-on-prayer-minutes-of-silence-and-seeing-a-fictionalized-version-of-his-relationship-with-fred-rogers-in-a-beautiful-day-in-the-neighborhood.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2019\/11\/exclusive-mister-rogers-chronicler-tom-junod-on-prayer-minutes-of-silence-and-seeing-a-fictionalized-version-of-his-relationship-with-fred-rogers-in-a-beautiful-day-in-the-neighborhood.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2019\/11\/exclusive-mister-rogers-chronicler-tom-junod-on-prayer-minutes-of-silence-and-seeing-a-fictionalized-version-of-his-relationship-with-fred-rogers-in-a-beautiful-day-in-the-neighborhood.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Exclusive: Mister Rogers chronicler Tom Junod on prayer, minutes of silence, and seeing a fictionalized version of his relationship with Fred Rogers in A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/","name":"FilmChat","description":"","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/#\/schema\/person\/5759ddf28b81af08b29eb15b4e071fde","name":"Peter T. Chattaway","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/9c4b809df092b410d749a6995bcf4f3e?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/9c4b809df092b410d749a6995bcf4f3e?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Peter T. Chattaway"},"description":"Peter T. Chattaway was the regular film critic for BC Christian News from 1992 to 2011. In addition to his award-winning film column for that paper, his news and opinion pieces have appeared in such publications as Books & Culture, Christianity Today, Bible Review and the Vancouver Sun. He has also contributed essays to the books Re-Viewing The Passion: Mel Gibson\u2019s Film and Its Critics (Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), Scandalizing Jesus?: Kazantzakis\u2019s The Last Temptation of Christ Fifty Years on (Continuum, 2005) and The Bible in Motion: A Handbook of the Bible and Its Reception in Film (De Gruyter, 2016).","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/author\/peterchattaway"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63048","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1116"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=63048"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63048\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/63051"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63048"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63048"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63048"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}