TIFF 19: Tom Hanks says we can all learn to 'be kind' from Mr. Rogers

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Tom Hanks — nice guy, double Oscar-winner — plays beloved children’s TV show host Mr. Rogers — nice guy — in A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, screening at the Toronto International Film Festival.

It’s a no-brainer right?

That is, unless if you ask Hanks himself, as reporters did on the Roy Thomson Hall red carpet before the film’s world premiere Saturday night.

“I think it was because I was such a caring executioner in The Green Mile,” the 63-year-old said sarcastically. “And I killed just about the right about Nazis in Saving Private Ryan.”

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More seriously, Hanks said we can all learn in 2019 from Rogers’ attitude towards everyone he’d ever met in his life.

“He had the three secrets to happiness,” said Hanks. “Be kind, be kind and be kind. I think ‘kindness’ becomes a buzz word. It ends up being diminished by the fact of what it means. But honestly, if you give everybody a fair shake, if you understand that the person that is serving you or filling up your gas, might have had just as bad a day as you had, that’s just kindness.”

Directed by Marielle Heller — who brought the Melissa McCarthy-Richard E. Grant film Can You Ever Forgive Me to TIFF last year — the movie stars Welsh actor Matthew Rhys as real-life Esquire journalist Tom Junod (also on the red carpet) reluctantly sent by his editor to interview Rogers in 1998 and finds his life changed as a result.

They remained friends until Rogers death in 2003.

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“He was a remarkably kind guy but he was much stronger than people gave him credit for,” said Junod, who didn’t grow up watching Mr. Rogers because he was too old.

“He was a really big, important part of my life. That’s something that you can never expect when you’re assigned a story.”

Rhys (The Americans) said he hung out with Junod for two days “asking him inane questions,” to get a sense of him but was initially in awe of acting opposite Hanks.

“Terrifying,” he quipped. “On a very personal, insecure way, yes, terrifying. Having grown up with Tom Hanks as a true iconic hero of mine, it takes days to kind of go, ‘Oh, my God, that’s Tom Hanks. What do I say next to him?’ (I was) falling apart. And then seeing him embody Fred, not in an impersonating way, but in a true embodiment of who he was, was incredible to watch. So it took a few weeks to relax.”

Also on the TIFF red carpet were Susan Kelechi Watson (This is Us) and Chris Cooper, who play Junod’s wife and father, respectively.

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