On Monday, Heller clarified in a statement to Entertainment Weekly that the film is “not a biopic.”
“I disliked that when it got announced it was characterized as such,” she said. “It’s really not. It’s a movie that’s largely focused on a reporter and [Mr. Rogers’s] relationship to his life, and how [the reporter’s] whole world changes when coming in contact with Fred Rogers.”
She added that this film tells “a story for our times, a story about kindness and family connection and trying to tap into our better self. God knows we need that right now!”
While researching the movie, Heller also noted, “the writers found that more people than they could possibly count credited Mr. Rogers with changing their lives.” You Are My Friend will focus on Junod’s life. “[He was] in a critical point in his life—becoming a new father, having issues with his own father—and meeting Mr. Rogers to write a piece about him, thinking it’s going to be a bit of a puff piece, but it ends up changing his entire life.”
‘You Are My Friend’ will begin shooting this fall. ‘Won’t You Be My Neighbor?’ will hit theaters this summer. Several seasons of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood are already on Amazon Prime, so you can dash back to your childhood whenever you want in the meantime.
Isn’t it a wondrous, pure thing? Doesn’t that trailer just fill you with hope and pat you on the back, assuring that everything is going to be O.K…eventually?
Credits: vanityfair.com and Variety