Tom Hanks Discovers He's Related to Mr. Rogers (UPDATE)
‘A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood’ releases this week.
UPDATE (November 20, 2019): With the global premiere of A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood just around the corner, Academy Award winning actor Tom Hanks has just found out he is related to Frank Rogers, the late 63-year-old actor and television host Hanks portrays in the upcoming biopic.
According to CNN, Ancestry.com connects Hanks and Rogers as sixth cousins. “No, impossible,” Hanks’ wife Rita Wilson quickly said when Access Hollywood told the duo. “No, you’re pulling our leg.”
Access displayed a chart showing Hanks’ family history, revealing that he and Rogers shared a relative named Johannes Meffort, born in 1732. “Fred Rogers and Tom Hanks are sixth cousins sharing the same 5x great-grandfather … who immigrated from Germany to America in the 18th century,” Ancestry spokeswoman Keri Madonna told CNN on Tuesday. “Johannes raised a family of patriots; three of his sons (including Tom Hanks’ and Fred Rogers’s ancestors) served in the Revolutionary War.”
Rogers, who died in 2003, hosted Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood from 1968 to 2001 and was known for his positivity and care for children.
A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood premieres on November 22.
Ancestry
Original Story (November 12, 2019): A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood starring Tom Hanks as Mr. Rogers is getting a lot of Oscar buzz. To see what all the hype is about, Sony Pictures has just shared a new trailer for its forthcoming biopic.
The film centers on cynical, award-winning journalist Lloyd Vogel (Matthew Rhys) who is tasked with writing a profile of the beloved television legend, Fred Rogers (Tom Hanks). Through his encounter with Rogers, Vogel’s perspective on life is soon transformed, which can be seen in this emotional drama. Sony Pictures’ biopic follows the critically acclaimed Won’t You Be My Neighbor documentary, which examines Roger’s beautiful, yet complicated life as a children’s TV personality. Rogers passed away in 2003.
In a new featurette for the film, Hanks explains how he transformed into the beloved small screen star, “I started looking at many, many, many hours of the half-hour Mister Rogers Neighborhood. I read the scripts, the handwritten scripts, of the shows. But rather than trying to go for a microscopic mole for mole imitation of Fred Rogers, it was a cadence, a quietness, a slowness.”
A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood hits theaters November 22.
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