Faith and forgiveness take the front seat in the latest preview for the highly anticipated movie about beloved television icon Mister Rogers, starring Tom Hanks.
The new look into “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood” features commentary from real-life journalist Tom Junod, whose own encounter with Fred Rogers was life-changing and serves as the inspiration for the fall film.
“He had that amazing gift of looking at a person and seeing what that person needed, that he was gonna minister to that person,” Junod said. “And that person, in this particular case, was me.”
The journalist, who wrote an Esquire profile of the late Rogers in 2017, continued: “When I think of Fred, I often think of him in terms of what he did every morning, which was pray and think of the people he needed to pray for and write to those people.”
Frank Warninsky, who was a lighting technician for “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood,” said matter of factly of Rogers, “If you hit Fred on the right day or Fred hit you on the right day, he could change your life.”
The nearly 5-minute preview into the forthcoming film opened with Rogers, played by Hanks, asking his PBS show’s viewers: “Do you know what that means, to forgive?”
“It’s a decision we make,” he said, “to release a person from the feelings of anger we have toward them.”
And after having a conversation with a sick man, the children’s TV host told journalist Lloyd Vogel, played by actor Matthew Rhys, “I asked him to pray for me. I figure anyone who is going through what he is going through must be awfully close to God.”
You can watch the entire special preview above. The movie premieres in theaters around the country Nov. 22.