{"id":102645,"date":"2019-10-20T14:25:32","date_gmt":"2019-10-20T18:25:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.gayfriendschat.com\/socialblog\/marielle-heller-director-of-a-beautiful-day-in-the-neighborhood-on-the-lessons-of-mr-rogers\/"},"modified":"2019-10-20T14:25:32","modified_gmt":"2019-10-20T18:25:32","slug":"marielle-heller-director-of-a-beautiful-day-in-the-neighborhood-on-the-lessons-of-mr-rogers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gayfriendschat.com\/socialblog\/marielle-heller-director-of-a-beautiful-day-in-the-neighborhood-on-the-lessons-of-mr-rogers\/","title":{"rendered":"Marielle Heller director of \u2018A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood\u2019 on the lessons of Mr. Rogers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><b>Marielle Heller director of \u2018A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood\u2019 on the lessons of Mr. Rogers<\/b><\/p>\n<figure aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-539494\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/queerty-prodweb.s3.amazonaws.com\/2019\/10\/DF-05756_r-Large_1000x666p_thumbnail-670x446.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"670\" height=\"446\" srcset=\"https:\/\/queerty-prodweb.s3.amazonaws.com\/2019\/10\/DF-05756_r-Large_1000x666p_thumbnail-670x446.jpg 670w, https:\/\/queerty-prodweb.s3.amazonaws.com\/2019\/10\/DF-05756_r-Large_1000x666p_thumbnail-400x266.jpg 400w, https:\/\/queerty-prodweb.s3.amazonaws.com\/2019\/10\/DF-05756_r-Large_1000x666p_thumbnail.jpg 1000w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 670px) 100vw, 670px\"><figcaption><em>Director Marielle Heller and Tom Hanks. Photo by: Lacey Terrell<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Few movies arrive at the Toronto International Film Festival with as much fanfare as\u00a0<em>A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood,<\/em> directed by Marielle Heller.<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.queerty.com\/ellen-tom-hanks-robert-de-niro-bring-mannequin-challenge-white-house-20161123\">Tom Hanks<\/a>-led film features the actor stepping into the iconic presence of children\u2019s TV entertainer <a href=\"https:\/\/www.queerty.com\/judy-garland-psycho-clowns-kickass-angels-lady-fire-queerty-fall-movie-preview-20190921\">Fred Rogers<\/a>, and had its world premiere at this year\u2019s festival. It opens nationwide November 22.<\/p>\n<p>The film follows the depressive life of journalist Lloyd Vogel (Matthew Rhys) who gets assigned to write a profile on Mr. Rogers. Lloyd resists the assignment, especially after Mr. Rogers encourages him to get in touch with his feelings. Lloyd\u2019s marriage to his wife Andrea (Susan Kelechi Watson) is on the rocks and his relationships with his sister Lorraine (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.queerty.com\/make-us-love-5-things-want-see-new-judy-biopic-20180923\">Tammy Blanchard<\/a>) and alcoholic father Jerry (Chris Cooper) are in even worse shape. As Lloyd begins to learn the power of Mr. Rogers\u2019 message, he begins to regard his life in a whole new light.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<p><em>A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood<\/em> had begun to generate <a href=\"https:\/\/www.queerty.com\/5-queer-af-moments-last-nights-oscars-20190225\">Oscar buzz<\/a> even before it premiered; buzz only briefly muted when sound mixer James Emswiller suffered a heart attack and fell from a second-story balcony to his death several weeks into shooting. Heller canceled press for last year\u2019s hit, <em>Can You Ever Forgive Me,<\/em> as a result.<\/p>\n<p>Director Heller greets us in a grand ballroom at one of Toronto\u2019s classiest hotels, the Royal Fairmont, her wide, chestnut-colored eyes almost as bright as her smile. Queerty was lucky to score a few minutes with director Heller to talk about the power of Fred Rogers, his lessons about masculinity, and the tragedy that shocked the production.<\/p>\n<p><strong>We\u2019ve been chasing you down for a year. We were supposed to talk for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.queerty.com\/watch-glenn-close-hooking-christian-bale-gets-naked-rupert-everett-snubbed-20190222\"><i>Can You Ever Forgive Me<\/i>,<\/a> but press got canceled.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Oh yes.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<p><strong>So how do you go from an alcoholic hoaxer writer to Mr. Rogers?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Doesn\u2019t it make perfect sense?<\/p>\n<p><strong>In my mind it does, but my mind is a scary place.<\/strong><\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>I don\u2019t know. It\u2019s so funny, I feel like I can\u2019t pull myself back and look at the bird\u2019s eye view of my career in that way. I just know I can only work on movies that move me from an emotional standpoint and that I love the people involved. And I love Lee [Israel, of <i>Can You Ever Forgive Me<\/i>] and I love Mr. Rogers and I love Lloyd [the main character of <i>A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood<\/i>] and I love Minnie from <i>Diary of a Teenage Girl<\/i> too. I love people struggling with what it means to be a person in the world, and that it doesn\u2019t need to be a big fancy plotline. It\u2019s really us with each other in our own minds.<\/p>\n<figure aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-539495\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/queerty-prodweb.s3.amazonaws.com\/2019\/10\/DF-05792_rv2-Large_1000x667p_thumbnail-670x447.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"670\" height=\"447\" srcset=\"https:\/\/queerty-prodweb.s3.amazonaws.com\/2019\/10\/DF-05792_rv2-Large_1000x667p_thumbnail-670x447.jpg 670w, https:\/\/queerty-prodweb.s3.amazonaws.com\/2019\/10\/DF-05792_rv2-Large_1000x667p_thumbnail-400x267.jpg 400w, https:\/\/queerty-prodweb.s3.amazonaws.com\/2019\/10\/DF-05792_rv2-Large_1000x667p_thumbnail.jpg 1000w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 670px) 100vw, 670px\"><figcaption><em>Tom Hanks Photo by: Lacey Terrell<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><strong>Ok.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>So for me, I didn\u2019t ever really think I was going to make a movie that wasn\u2019t about <a title=\"\" class=\"aalmanual\" target=\"_blank\"   href=\"https:\/\/www.flirt4free.com\/live\/girls\/?mp_code=akftr\">women<\/a>. I kind of thought if I just made my career about making movies about <a title=\"\" class=\"aalmanual\" target=\"_blank\"   href=\"https:\/\/www.flirt4free.com\/live\/girls\/?mp_code=akftr\">women<\/a>, we still wouldn\u2019t have enough movies about <a title=\"\" class=\"aalmanual\" target=\"_blank\"   href=\"https:\/\/www.flirt4free.com\/live\/girls\/?mp_code=akftr\">women<\/a>. But then Mr. Rogers\u2014I joke that Mr. Rogers is the one <a title=\"\" class=\"aalmanual\" target=\"_blank\"   href=\"https:\/\/chaturbate.com\/in\/?tour=R2Xc&#38;campaign=hl4zp&#38;track=gfcsb\">man<\/a> who could make me make a movie about <a title=\"\" class=\"aalmanual\" target=\"_blank\"   href=\"https:\/\/chaturbate.com\/in\/?tour=R2Xc&#38;campaign=hl4zp&#38;track=gfcsb\">men<\/a>.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<p><i>[Laughter]<\/i><\/p>\n<p>And really, its a movie about <a href=\"https:\/\/www.queerty.com\/simon-doonan-drags-incredible-past-present-future-20190921\">masculinity<\/a> in many ways.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Absolutely it is.<\/strong><\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>But I really don\u2019t believe that gender is binary, so, whatever.<\/p>\n<p><strong>It\u2019s all good. The appeal of <a title=\"\" class=\"aalmanual\" target=\"_blank\"   href=\"https:\/\/chaturbate.com\/in\/?tour=R2Xc&#38;campaign=hl4zp&#38;track=gfcsb\">male<\/a> bonding is essentially what this film is about at its core. It\u2019s about affection between <a title=\"\" class=\"aalmanual\" target=\"_blank\"   href=\"https:\/\/chaturbate.com\/in\/?tour=R2Xc&#38;campaign=hl4zp&#38;track=gfcsb\">men<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>And also <a title=\"\" class=\"aalmanual\" target=\"_blank\"   href=\"https:\/\/chaturbate.com\/in\/?tour=R2Xc&#38;campaign=hl4zp&#38;track=gfcsb\">men<\/a> struggling with the fact that they\u2019re taught to not be affectionate and taught not to know or own their emotions, or to communicate their emotions. It\u2019s not just their bonding, it\u2019s also their pain, and the disservice we do to <a title=\"\" class=\"aalmanual\" target=\"_blank\"   href=\"https:\/\/chaturbate.com\/in\/?tour=R2Xc&#38;campaign=hl4zp&#38;track=gfcsb\">men<\/a> and to <a title=\"\" class=\"aalmanual\" target=\"_blank\"   href=\"https:\/\/chaturbate.com\/in\/?tour=R2Xc&#38;campaign=hl4zp&#38;track=gfcsb\">boys<\/a> when we don\u2019t allow them the same access to emotions. That was something Mr. Rogers believed fundamentally: that we all need to feel our feelings.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<p><strong>Totally. And in that way, Mr. Rogers is <a href=\"https:\/\/www.queerty.com\/mr-rogers-apparently-bisexual-twitter-loving-20190306\">considered something of a queer icon<\/a>, if an ironic one. He\u2019s been called <a title=\"\" class=\"aalmanual\" target=\"_blank\"   href=\"https:\/\/www.flirt4free.com\/live\/girls\/couples\/?mp_code=akftr\">bisexual<\/a>, not in the sense that he ever wanted to have <a title=\"\" class=\"aalmanual\" target=\"_blank\"   href=\"https:\/\/www.flirt4free.com\/live\/girls\/couples\/?mp_code=akftr\">sex<\/a> with or felt attracted to other <a title=\"\" class=\"aalmanual\" target=\"_blank\"   href=\"https:\/\/chaturbate.com\/in\/?tour=R2Xc&#38;campaign=hl4zp&#38;track=gfcsb\">men<\/a>, but in that he never shied away from showing affection to other <a title=\"\" class=\"aalmanual\" target=\"_blank\"   href=\"https:\/\/chaturbate.com\/in\/?tour=R2Xc&#38;campaign=hl4zp&#38;track=gfcsb\">men<\/a> and encouraged other people to embrace that.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>And he was sensitive. He wore sensitivity on his sleeve and never tried to appear macho or promote masculinity in that other kind of way.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Yes.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>And he was so comfortable being soft in that way. That made people uncomfortable as well, and that was a <i>radical<\/i> thing he allowed: for <a title=\"\" class=\"aalmanual\" target=\"_blank\"   href=\"https:\/\/chaturbate.com\/in\/?tour=R2Xc&#38;campaign=hl4zp&#38;track=gfcsb\">men<\/a> to see someone like him on television.<\/p>\n<p><strong>That\u2019s still radical. Even by today\u2019s standards.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Pathetically, I agree.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mr. Rogers was, and still is, the most empathetic <a title=\"\" class=\"aalmanual\" target=\"_blank\"   href=\"https:\/\/chaturbate.com\/in\/?tour=R2Xc&#38;campaign=hl4zp&#38;track=gfcsb\">man<\/a> on television. Watching the film last night, I kept wrestling one question: who was Fred Rogers at his core? There\u2019s something so elusive about him.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Yes.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Something hidden. For you as a director approaching this kind of material, I think you need to make a choice about that to construct your film and direct your actors.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Related:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.queerty.com\/mr-rogers-apparently-bisexual-twitter-loving-20190306\">Mr. Rogers was apparently bisexual, and Twitter is loving it<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Yeah.<\/p>\n<p><strong>So who was he at his core?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I think it was important that he was human at his core, with pain, with anger, with heartache, with regret, and who is working every day to be better. He is accessing his better self, but he is still human. It was really his wife Joanne who said to me \u201cHe is not a saint, and if you think of him as a saint, it\u2019s not attainable what he was aiming for.\u201d And it makes all the rest of us feel like <i>oh, I don\u2019t have to try to be like that<\/i>. He wasn\u2019t born that way. For me, it was about showing him as a complex human. The truth is when you talk to people about him, <i>everyone<\/i> heaped their baggage on him. Everyone came to him with their story.<\/p>\n<p><strong>He\u2019s like a therapist in this film.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>And he helped them! When we asked people, like the real Bill Eisler, \u201cDid he talk to you about other people\u2019s burdens or pain that they brought him?\u201d He would say \u201cNo, go ask Joanne .\u201d And Joanne would say \u201cI don\u2019t think so. You should ask Hedda.\u201d And they all would say \u201cNo, he didn\u2019t talk to me about that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Wow.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>So where we came to a conclusion was that he held it. He was holding the pain of so many people. So that\u2019s what we try to allude to in the final moments of the film as well. He was not immune to that pain. He was <i>so<\/i> sensitive to that pain.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Totally.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>For me, I\u2019m an incredibly sensitive person. I remember I went to a zen Buddhist center in Brooklyn recently. They were talking about if the goal of Buddhism was to get to a point where you don\u2019t feel pain or suffering anymore. And no, the point is to learn to feel it <i>fully<\/i>. And it made me think of Fred. That\u2019s what he did.<\/p>\n<figure aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-539498\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/queerty-prodweb.s3.amazonaws.com\/2019\/10\/Tom-Hanks-Matthew-Rhys-Beautiful-Day-in-the-Neighborhood-670x470.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"670\" height=\"470\" srcset=\"https:\/\/queerty-prodweb.s3.amazonaws.com\/2019\/10\/Tom-Hanks-Matthew-Rhys-Beautiful-Day-in-the-Neighborhood-670x470.jpg 670w, https:\/\/queerty-prodweb.s3.amazonaws.com\/2019\/10\/Tom-Hanks-Matthew-Rhys-Beautiful-Day-in-the-Neighborhood-400x281.jpg 400w, https:\/\/queerty-prodweb.s3.amazonaws.com\/2019\/10\/Tom-Hanks-Matthew-Rhys-Beautiful-Day-in-the-Neighborhood.jpg 872w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 670px) 100vw, 670px\"><figcaption><em>Mister Rogers (Tom Hanks) meets journalist Lloyd Vogel (Matthew Rhys).<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><strong>That\u2019s so beautiful. That also alludes to the other key relationship in the film, which is that between Lloyd and Jerry, his dad. By the way, thank you for giving Chris Cooper a good part.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Are you kidding me? He\u2019s the most incredible actor.<\/p>\n<p><strong>And Tammy Blanchard. Two of the most underrated actors alive. You give them both good stuff to do.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Of course I do. I adore them. Watching Chris Cooper work in this movie was like a master class every day. I was weeping at the monitor. He is such a generous, kind spirit. He is such a phenomenal actor. He brings it in such a way I\u2019m so moved watching him work. He\u2019s incredible.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The scene where Fred whispers in his ear, and we just see the light reflected in his eye\u2014somehow he emotes through that.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Me and my mother cried about that last night.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Aww! The Jerry-Lloyd relationship is so interesting in that\u2026I don\u2019t know if I should say this. I found myself thinking a lot about <a title=\"\" class=\"aalmanual\" target=\"_blank\"   href=\"https:\/\/chaturbate.com\/in\/?tour=R2Xc&#38;campaign=hl4zp&#38;track=gfcsb\">men<\/a> in my family who I don\u2019t think are bad <a title=\"\" class=\"aalmanual\" target=\"_blank\"   href=\"https:\/\/chaturbate.com\/in\/?tour=R2Xc&#38;campaign=hl4zp&#38;track=gfcsb\">men<\/a>, but made some really bad choices.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Sure. There are a lot of <a title=\"\" class=\"aalmanual\" target=\"_blank\"   href=\"https:\/\/chaturbate.com\/in\/?tour=R2Xc&#38;campaign=hl4zp&#38;track=gfcsb\">men<\/a> in all our lives who hold pain that we all are dealing with.<\/p>\n<p><strong>So who did you think about in your own life? I had to stop and think: is it the people we love most in life that are the hardest to forgive? It seems like it would be the other way around.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>No, because when people have hurt us\u2026you know\u2013 I thought about my father\u2019s father. They were estranged by the end of his life. I can remember what that felt like for my dad. I was really lucky that I had a father who chose to become his better self, and to be a wonderful father. And his father was a wonderful father to him as well, but life got in the way and caused pain between family members. Which happens.<\/p>\n<figure aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-539497\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/queerty-prodweb.s3.amazonaws.com\/2019\/10\/Beautiful-day-in-the-neighborhood-daniel-tiger-670x447.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"670\" height=\"447\" srcset=\"https:\/\/queerty-prodweb.s3.amazonaws.com\/2019\/10\/Beautiful-day-in-the-neighborhood-daniel-tiger-670x447.jpg 670w, https:\/\/queerty-prodweb.s3.amazonaws.com\/2019\/10\/Beautiful-day-in-the-neighborhood-daniel-tiger-400x267.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 670px) 100vw, 670px\"><figcaption><em>Tom Hanks Photo by: Lacey Terrell<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><strong>Sure. Did making the film help to reconcile that for you in some way?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>My dad was there last night and I need to have that conversation with him, and ask him how it made him feel about his own dad. I can only imagine. Really, I think the beautiful thing about this movie is we all have our own entry point to it. We all have things we relate to. I relate both to Fred and to Lloyd in different parts of myself. I don\u2019t know\u2026this is the first time I\u2019ve been thinking about this, so I need to talk to my dad and see what he says.<\/p>\n<p><strong>I\u2019d love to know what he says. So, ok, this is the last question, and it\u2019s a tricky one. Part of being a director is being a leader. We tend to get caught up in the artistic vision element, but in order to make a good film, a director needs to lead a cast and crew.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Yeah.<\/p>\n<p><strong>We are living right now in a time where, as a society, we\u2019re seeing a dereliction of leadership, and its consequences.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><i>[A beat]<\/i><\/p>\n<p><strong>You had a tragedy, making this film. So my question to you is, how do you rise and act as a leader when tragedy strikes? How do you hold your company together to make something wonderful?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I really appreciate the way you frame that question, I have to say. For me\u2026<\/p>\n<p><i>[Long pause]<\/i><\/p>\n<p>When we lost Jim, it was the hardest thing I\u2019ve ever experienced on a set. I felt at once responsible for everyone that was there, and for their emotions. I thought the worst thing we could do when making a film about Mr. Rogers, was just to push people forward without acknowledging the deep pain we all share.<\/p>\n<p><i>[Marielle\u2019s eyes shine like gems as they begin to well]<\/i><\/p>\n<p>The first thing we did was listen. We said \u201cWe are guests and visitors to your city [the film shot on location in Baltimore]. We are part of your community because you welcomed us with open arms. Jim was one of yours. How can we help in this moment?\u201d The crew wanted to gather, so we gathered and cried together. We spent many days crying together, and we let people know that this was a place where we were not going to push the show forward without letting people experience their emotions. It would not be what Fred would have wanted, and it wasn\u2019t how we wanted to leave the show.<\/p>\n<p>The truth is, there is no blueprint for how you move forward from a tragedy. Nobody called and said \u201cThis is what we do when this happens.\u201d None of the producers had gone through this, so it wasn\u2019t like <i>oh we do this, then we do this<\/i>. It was me and the producers sitting down and saying \u201cHow do we want to guide? How do we want to lead in this moment?\u201d<\/p>\n<p><i>[She wrings her hands as they begin to shake]<\/i><\/p>\n<p>The most important thing was that everyone felt the space to grieve however they needed to. We basically said to everyone, if you need to leave you can leave. If you want to be with us, you can be with us. We will have grief counselors. We can gather. We will honor him. And everyone said \u201cWe want to be here. He would want us to finish this movie. He was happy making this movie. We are happy making this movie. We are all proud. We want to be together.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/queerty-prodweb.s3.amazonaws.com\/2019\/09\/a-beautiful-day-670x377.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"670\" height=\"377\" srcset=\"https:\/\/queerty-prodweb.s3.amazonaws.com\/2019\/09\/a-beautiful-day-670x377.jpg 670w, https:\/\/queerty-prodweb.s3.amazonaws.com\/2019\/09\/a-beautiful-day-400x225.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 670px) 100vw, 670px\"><\/p>\n<p>So we all gathered together our first day back on set. We rolled a minute of silence for Jim, because he was our sound <a title=\"\" class=\"aalmanual\" target=\"_blank\"   href=\"https:\/\/chaturbate.com\/in\/?tour=R2Xc&#38;campaign=hl4zp&#38;track=gfcsb\">guy<\/a>. And we all cried. And I spoke. One of the sound people played a song for him. And we held each other. From that moment forward, we were so bonded. I mean, the entire crew making this movie feels like family to me in a way I can\u2019t explain. I was so moved and touched by the way people stepped up.<\/p>\n<p><i>[A beat]<\/i><\/p>\n<p>That is the only time I\u2019ve discussed that in the press.<\/p>\n<p><strong>It\u2019s a great answer. And the film is a great monument to him.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>And it is dedicated to him of course.<\/p>\n<p><em>A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood opens November 22 in cinemas.<\/em><\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/queerty2?a=RZufkr9x3aM:MI6dLLvf2Ho:yIl2AUoC8zA\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/queerty2?d=yIl2AUoC8zA\" border=\"0\"><\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/queerty2?a=RZufkr9x3aM:MI6dLLvf2Ho:dnMXMwOfBR0\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/queerty2?d=dnMXMwOfBR0\" border=\"0\"><\/a>\n<\/div>\n<p>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.queerty.com\/marielle-heller-director-beautiful-day-neighborhood-lessons-mr-rogers-20191020?utm_source=feedburner&#038;utm_medium=feed&#038;utm_campaign=Feed%3A+queerty2+%28Queerty%29\" class=\"autohyperlink\">www.queerty.com\/marielle-heller-director-beautiful-day-neighborhood-lessons-mr-rogers-20191020?utm_source=feedburner&#038;utm_medium=feed&#038;utm_campaign=Feed%3A+queerty2+%28Queerty%29<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Marielle Heller director of \u2018A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood\u2019 on the lessons of Mr. Rogers Director Marielle Heller and Tom Hanks. Photo by: Lacey Terrell Few movies arrive at the Toronto International Film Festival with as much fanfare as\u00a0A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, directed by Marielle Heller. The Tom Hanks-led film features the &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gayfriendschat.com\/socialblog\/marielle-heller-director-of-a-beautiful-day-in-the-neighborhood-on-the-lessons-of-mr-rogers\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Marielle Heller director of \u2018A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood\u2019 on the lessons of Mr. Rogers<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2466,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[107],"tags":[31774,31773,31775,31772],"class_list":["post-102645","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-fred-rogers","tag-jerry-chris-cooper","tag-related-mr","tag-watching-chris-cooper"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Marielle Heller director of \u2018A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood\u2019 on the lessons of Mr. Rogers - GAYFRIENDSCHAT.com<\/title>\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.gayfriendschat.com\/socialblog\/marielle-heller-director-of-a-beautiful-day-in-the-neighborhood-on-the-lessons-of-mr-rogers\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Marielle Heller director of \u2018A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood\u2019 on the lessons of Mr. Rogers - GAYFRIENDSCHAT.com\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Marielle Heller director of \u2018A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood\u2019 on the lessons of Mr. Rogers Director Marielle Heller and Tom Hanks. Photo by: Lacey Terrell Few movies arrive at the Toronto International Film Festival with as much fanfare as\u00a0A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, directed by Marielle Heller. 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