Your Neighbor, Tom Hanks
Monday, January 29, 2018 at 10:00PM 
Hi, neighbor. Here's biopic casting that only America's Dad could take on: Tom Hanks will be filling the shoes (before he slips them off at the door) of beloved friendly icon Mr. Rogers. The film will be called You Are My Friend and center around Fred Rogers's relationship with journalist and cynic Tom Junod.
The film will also have a formidable assemblage beyond Hanks...
Marielle Heller will be taking on directing reigns from a script by Transparent writers Micah Fitzerman-Blue and Noah Harpster. The Diary of a Teenage Girl fans will be well aware that Heller's eye for the imaginative and deeply personal make for an exciting fit for Mr. Rogers neighborhood and holistic outlook. That film had us excited for whatever may come next, and this year she'll be giving us the Melissa McCarthy-led and Nicole Holofcener-scripted Can You Ever Forgive Me.
With Sundance doc Won't You Be My Neighbor? opening this summer, Rogers will be back in our cultural consciousness. Naturally the news of one of our most beloved actors playing such a prominant social figure has our awards-wheels turning. Particularly when Rogers' lessons of kindness and compassion could be a comfort to the masses and smartly delivered by a filmmaker like Heller. But Hanks is oddly underestimated and underrewarded these days, even when working slightly against type like in The Post or delivering a career high as in Captain Phillips. If Friend checks all boxes, could the combination of a fresh filmmaker and biopic prestige be what brings the actor back to the Oscar fold?
But maybe our concerns should immediately go to Rogers iconography first. If The Post gave us The Caftan, maybe You Are My Friend will give us a cozy companion: The Cardigan.
Reader Comments (12)
After seeing The Post the other day, I said to my husband "Someone somewhere has got to have a list of all the real-life people and events portrayed or filmed by Streep, Hanks, and Spielberg. Must be at least 50. And how many did they get right?" So here's another one to add to the list.
Also, as another film blog suggested, those three don't really need anymore Oscars. Just put them in a box marked "Great".
And, I hate when docs are released the same time as features on the same subject. It confuses most people. Especially those who can't discern fact from fiction.
Prediction: Melissa McCarthy is a big Oscar contender this time next year.
He couldn't get arrested for playing Walt Disney.
Who doesn't want Tom Hanks as your neighbor?
I really like Tom Hanks but I am skunked how this would work as a feature film.
"Slightly" is the operative word when you say he's "against type" in The Post. He's not really against type in a sense, as he's playing yet another morally upright good guy. Ben Bradlee is supposed to be more macho and hardnosed than his usual (which is not really Hanks forte), so Hanks unsubtly tries to convey that by growling out his dialogue to suggest he's been smoking 50 a day. It doesn't work. As a performance it's incredibly on the nose and lacking in any sense of layering.
He's not underestimated. He's just incredibly safe. His roles, despite so many coming in Best Picture or oscar calibre films, demand nothing new or fresh from him. It's like watching Robert DeNiro or Al Pacino play a gangster or cop. They did that shit for 40 years. After a certain point, you know they can do it on autopilot. I wouldn't even nominate him for Captain Philips. He's fantastic in the last 5 minutes, but 5 minutes of superb acting does not a make an oscar level lead actor performance. He spent the majority of the film getting outacted by an unknown Somalian actor.
Mr Rogers looks like more of the same from Hanks. The guy is happy being the modern Jimmy Stewart. He's happy cornering the market in safe dad figures for his whole career. That's a great comfort blanket for audiences, but none of that demands awards or oscar recognition, especially at this point in his career. He wants that, he needs to seriously stretch and go against type, and actually make people believe it. I'm talking Henry Fonda in Once Upon A Time In The West levels.
This is too on the nose. This was the role Hanks was meant to play since his Oscar nominations dried up. The success of this film will ride or die on who plays Junod.
THIS is the one that will get him back in Oscar's good graces. The Internet is already pre-excited. (precited?)
Hanks as Mr Rogers is perfect casting.
juno: Or, to compare it to Jimmy Stewart, he's like if Jimmy Stewart ended his career without Vertigo.
Is there something in this story to interest people outside North America who are unfamiliar with Mr Rogers?
Juno, I agree. The Post is quite literally the only Tom Hanks performance i didn't like. I've disliked Hank films, but I've never disliked his acting before.