Film editor Anne McCabe and director Marielle Heller “both felt we needed to be incredibly respectful of the real Mister Rogers” when making “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood.” That courtesy extended to “the people who were involved with” Rogers’s long-running children’s series since “a lot of them were involved in the movie as well.” Watch our exclusive video interview with McCabe above.
The TriStar release is not your typical biographical drama. Instead it’s about the friendship between the beloved Fred Rogers (Tom Hanks) and Lloyd Vogel (Matthew Rhys), a fictionalized version of real-life journalist Tom Junod, who profiled him in 1998 for Esquire magazine. Early on in the movie Lloyd’s wife, Andrea (Susan Kelechi Watson), begs him not to ruin her childhood by taking down her idol, and McCabe “felt that pressure” as well.
Because the documentary “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?” (2018) “did such a wonderful job talking about the real Fred Rogers,” McCabe believed “the movie should be something different. It’s more like a companion piece to the documentary.” As such, she and Heller were interested in framing their story “as an extended version of the show,” but “for adults.” So they started off with Hanks performing the show’s iconic opening before diving into “what Mister Rogers’ message was, which was how to deal with emotion, and constructive ways of dealing with anger and sadness.”
McCabe previously worked with Heller on her Oscar-nominated “Can You Ever Forgive Me?” (2018), as well as on films like “The Daytrippers” (1996), “You Can Count on Me” (2000), “Maria Full of Grace” (2004), “Adventureland” (2009), “Margaret” (2011) and “Top Five” (2014). She’s also a prolific TV editor, winning an ACE Eddie award for “The Newsroom” in 2013 and cutting episodes of “Nurse Jackie,” “Damages” and “Succession.”
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In Vedic Astrology, Mars stands for anger and Saturn for sadness. They are two of the most dire natural malefics invthe chart.
However, if they are placed in their own or exalted signs (Mars rules Aires and Scorpio and is exalted in Capricorn and Saturn rules Capricorn and Aquarius and is exalted in Libra) they tend to take the hard edges off the planet. Saturn will forbear and Mars will go forward in life.
Surprisingly Fred Rogers has an exalted Mars in Capricorn but his Saturn is in its enemy sign Scorpio. But the ruler of Scorpio is Mars which is exalted, so Saturn invariably gets strong as well.
Fred Rogers interactionist strategy with adults was always to enlighten them that they can always rake charge of their own lives (Mars) even though they may be suffering from depressive anxiety (Saturn).