STACK #186 Apr 2020

FILM FEATURE

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SLEEPLESS IN SEATTLE Hanks simultaneously voiced Woody in Toy Story during breaks in filming.

SAVING PRIVATE RYAN

voice for their feelings, but it’s also so much more than

having Hanks play Fred was like “America’s dad playing America’s dad.” “I don’t think there was

This is a movie about men really finding a voice for their feelings

that. It’s really about all the things we deal with as adults that are really complex emotional issues that we don’t talk about – we don’t talk about how hard it is to become a parent, or lose a parent, or transition through parts of our life where things feel hard, or scary, or painful. “To have this relationship that Lloyd the journalist has with Mister Rogers, where he sort of becomes this guiding light through one of his hardest transitions in his life… I just felt like this is what we need right now.” For Hanks – who read Rogers’ memoirs and personal correspondence – there will always be some mystery to the late TV personality. “The thing about Fred is that he is instantaneously one of two things to every adult in America. He’s either a saint or a fraud. It’s such an interesting juxtaposition because you can’t be both. You have to be one or the other because that’s the way movie life is. “But in this, we never made fun of Fred; we slowed down in order to listen to him. So we both deconstruct the myth but time after time, there is undeniably still a mystery. What’s his motivation? Is it because of commerce? No. He was the least commercial performer on television. He never sold his toys or had commercials. He was also actually an ordained minister who never mentioned God.” And even if Hanks still can’t answer those questions, he feels that the world is a better place for this movie.

Hanks was inducted into the US Army’s Ranger Hall of Fame as an honorary member in 2006, for his accurate portrayal of Captain John Miller.

a choice in Tom being Fred. He was kind of born to play Fred,” says Rhys. “There are so many qualities that Tom Hanks and Mister Rogers share, so many common feelings that they both elicit.” Through their interactions, Fred’s gentle nature and kind spirit puts Lloyd in a mind to examine the roots of his own anger and pain and to heal. “Fred, in a very calm way, sets Lloyd on a path of kind of reckoning and a way of growing in a way that’s very much to do with his own doing. I think he very gently guides him along this path of allowing him to see a number of things, and to grow as a result of it,” says Rhys. As Hanks explains using the words of Mister Rogers, “Fred was literally one of the people who loved Lloyd into existence. Lloyd is a better son, he’s a better father, he’s a better husband, he’s a better journalist, he’s a better friend, all because a guy who had no reason to do so but told him, ‘You’re very special. I think you’re great just exactly as you are. You don’t have to change at all.’ And therein lies the magic of Fred Rogers, whose on-screen persona transitions seamlessly to his off-screen self. His lessons that he calmly, carefully and comprehensively imparted on Mister Rogers’ Neighbourhood are wise words for both children and adults. While Rogers died in 2003, Heller believes the film sends out an important message into the universe. “This is a movie about men really finding

FORREST GUMP Tom’s younger

brother, Jim Hanks, doubled for him in many of the running sequences – “Run brother, run!”

TOY STORY Early test footage, using Hanks’s voice from Turner & Hooch , convinced the actor

to sign on as the voice of Woody.

• A Beautiful Day in the Neighbourhood is out on Apr 29

28 APRIL 2020

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