I was going to say part of his whole mantra was that it was all stuff you could do yourself. It was attainable. Happiness was attainable.
Enrico Colantoni: Absolutely. That was the gift he had: he recognized beauty. When the rest of us are miserable about one thing or another, he held onto what is beautiful in everyone and everything. And he was a constant reminder. It was true and it was authentic, and the character that I played, Bill Isler, was very much his right-hand man, very much his protector, very much the keeper of the gate, was as much of that as Fred was. But what made Bill not Fred is that Bill had business sense. He was an actual educator that was committed to bringing early education to children in a different way. He produced it. Fred needed him as much as he needed Fred because otherwise, Fred would just be that guy that saved the world one kid at a time. And Bill was, “no, let’s” –
Push out?
Enrico Colantoni: Let’s push out. Let’s not reach one kid but let’s reach 40 million kids.
So, I guess that was your experience working on the movie. Was it any different when you were growing up? You were here, you didn’t have PBS –
Enrico Colantoni: We did. It was that afternoon program on the American network. But we had Mr. Dressup. We had Friendly Giant. You don’t remember those shows. So, Mr. Dressup was iconic to Canadian kids because he did everything that Fred Rogers was doing. And they knew each other, they came up together. They were both from – I don’t know if Ernie Coombs was from Pittsburg – but he drove up and they did an early form of the Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood for the CBC. Ernie Coombs stayed. Fred went back to Pittsburg, re-developed the show. Ernie stayed and developed Mr. Dressup. So, we had that. We had those things growing up. Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood was on PBS. We didn’t always get it. Sometimes it was on, sometimes it wasn’t. But it was slow moving. It wasn’t as fun and festive as Mr. Dressup and he was talking about serious shit too. So, it was like, “[Mister Rogers] is kind of scary.” It wasn’t so much a part of my childhood. If they did a movie about Mr. Dressup, I’d, you know, absolutely get it. But of course, you remember Fred Rogers and reading it, I remember thinking, “if this guy came to my door with that message, I’d slam the door on his face.” Because it would scare the shit out of me.
That’s the cruel irony of it, isn’t it?
Enrico Colantoni: I wouldn’t know what to do with that message.
Well hopefully there’s a bigger place for that message now. Won’t You Be My Neighbor came out last year and re-introduced Fred Rogers as a different kind of blockbuster superhero. What does he offer audiences today?
Enrico Colantoni: Look, man, we can’t be waiting for Fred Rogers to come back. The message is still alive and well but we’re so dense that we’d rather spend time blaming what’s going on in the world to outside influences and not think about [how the solution] starts with me knocking on my neighbor’s door and say, “hey man, do you need anything? What can I do to help you today? What’s your story? How you feeling?” Go ahead! Start today. We can bitch and moan, “we need this movie more than ever now,” it’s like, “buddy, nobody’s ready for this movie.” Nobody’s ready to really embrace the message that he had. Because it scares the fuck out of us, let’s be honest. Let’s be honest.
Well, I’m in a hostel so I can try and do that today. Just tap down on the bunk below.
Enrico Colantoni: Yeah, right.
You talked about this a little bit earlier. Tom Hanks is a different kind of hero: a huge film and pop culture icon. When you work alongside someone like Tom Hanks, is it a learning experience for you? Do you guys bounce ideas off each other? Do you just ingest what he’s doing?
Enrico Colantoni: He’s royalty; that’s all I can say. There’s not a bouncing of ideas, you know? But at the same time, he’s not that much older than I am. He’s not going to tell me how to do anything. He’s not going to try to teach me how to act. But I’m going to watch him and I’m going to find respect in how he carries himself as the high-profile person on this film. And how he carries himself is an example to everybody. He doesn’t make it about himself. He knows who he is. He knows what he’s achieved, but he doesn’t bring that to work. He brings a professional actor who does his work and has fun and makes everyone else feel comfortable around him. So not unlike Fred, who knew how he affected people, was very much aware of how people saw him, Tom’s no different. He can’t walk into a room and not think he’s not Tom Hanks and everybody’s looking at him. So what he does beautifully is just make sure you know that it’s okay. It’s like, “hey, man, I know you know who I am, but I’m not going to make it about me, I’m going to make it about you.”
What did you notice in [how Ms. Heller directs him]? Because this is one of her earlier features, to be working with such a high-profile [performer].
Enrico Colantoni: Well, she’s done two previous works. But yeah, I guess it was exciting for her to work with a guy like Tom Hanks, but he was very available to say, “do you want this? Do you want that?” But she treated everybody the same. Sometimes – and you see this a lot on television – a director feels more intimidated with the stars of the show, so they take all their frustrations out on the guest shows. It’s like they’re directing the guest stars to do all this shit, but the stars of the show go, “yeah, whatever you guys want to do.” And she treated everybody the same. She delegated. She trusted what you were going to bring, and if it was a story point and she needed something else, she had no problem just [letting you know]. She didn’t over-direct this thing. She just let us do our jobs.
I noticed that. [The film] was very understated and simple, sort of like Mister Rogers’ messages.
Enrico Colantoni: There was nothing slick about this film. It was very real; those moments were real. She could have gone back and done any one of those takes ten, and 12 and 30 times, but no.
I heard that [the opening scene where Hanks does the whole intro] took 22 takes.
Enrico Colantoni: I wasn’t there for that one.
You’re the company director and you weren’t there for that?
Enrico Colantoni: You know what, I’m just an actor.
But [Hanks] really did capture the look and essence of [Rogers]. I remember when the first publicity photos came out, the internet blew up about this. “Oh my God, Tom Hanks is Mister Rogers!” When did you see him for the first time, what was that like for you?
Enrico Colantoni: Did I meet him as Tom or as Fred Rogers the first time?
Oh no, he’s not a method actor, right?
Enrico Colantoni: Not at all, but Tom’s hair is very curly and he’s younger looking. They aged him up a lot more. So when I met him, he was already in makeup and he had that hair piece on. But he wasn’t acting like Fred Rogers. Actually, yeah, I remember. They were coming out of the house. It was the scene where the Bill character is picking him up from Lloyd’s house and they get in the car and they drive away. He was just telling stories and talking to kids. The people who lived in the neighborhood had signs waiting for him. He would [see a couple with their kids] and say, “hey, just pull over.” He’s Jimmy Stewart. He would be engaging me, “ah, you’re from Just Shoot Me! Love that show, you’re on that show! Just Shoot Me!” He makes you feel like he sees you, and you’re one of him. You just belong. When a guy like that sets an example like that – that’s priceless, man.
This interview took place during the 2019 Toronto International Film Festival.
