{"source_url": "https://www.latimes.com", "url": "https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/movies/story/2020-01-01/matthew-rhys-on-working-with-tom-hanks-in-beautiful-day", "title": "Matthew Rhys finds story in the silences of \u2018Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood\u2019", "top_image": "https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/5179172/2147483647/strip/true/crop/3448x1810+0+825/resize/1200x630!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F38%2F8a%2F077866d84e3b95865a69ef13d33d%2Fla-photos-1staff-473689-et-1123-matthew-rhys-004-gem.jpg", "meta_img": "https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/5179172/2147483647/strip/true/crop/3448x1810+0+825/resize/1200x630!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F38%2F8a%2F077866d84e3b95865a69ef13d33d%2Fla-photos-1staff-473689-et-1123-matthew-rhys-004-gem.jpg", "images": ["https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/0e/c6/b86a8b4b43a793259deb28a32a56/latlogoinverse.svg", "data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==", "https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/cc39301/2147483647/strip/true/crop/3448x3460+0+0/resize/840x843!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F38%2F8a%2F077866d84e3b95865a69ef13d33d%2Fla-photos-1staff-473689-et-1123-matthew-rhys-004-gem.jpg", "https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/5179172/2147483647/strip/true/crop/3448x1810+0+825/resize/1200x630!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F38%2F8a%2F077866d84e3b95865a69ef13d33d%2Fla-photos-1staff-473689-et-1123-matthew-rhys-004-gem.jpg", "https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/b9/f5/1c9278c94a439e28f5150c679d6f/logo-full-black.svg"], "movies": [], "text": "During one of his first meetings with director Marielle Heller about \u201cA Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood,\u201d Welsh actor Matthew Rhys said the conversation took an unexpected turn. \u201cWhat she really wanted to talk about was \u2018The Americans\u2019 \u2014 how fast we shot it, wigs, all that stuff. She\u2019s a fan,\u201d Rhys, says, referring to the FX spy thriller where for six seasons he starred as a disguise-happy Soviet KGB officer posing as a U.S. citizen.\n\nWhen it came to his \u201cBeautiful Day\u201d character, Lloyd Vogel \u2014 which is loosely based on Esquire\u2019s Tom Junod and his perspective-changing experience profiling cherished TV personality Fred Rogers (Tom Hanks) \u2014 Rhys was already bingeing on old episodes of \u201cMister Rogers\u2019 Neighborhood,\u201d poring over \u201890s Esquire articles and going on what he calls \u201cmy usual deep dive,\u201d in this case into the psyche of a doubting journalist.\n\nRecently, Rhys could be found at L.A.'s Chateau Marmont discussing American accents, his transformative costar and why he dislikes watching himself on screens, big and small. \u201cI get hung up on all the wrong things \u2014 like, \u2018I\u2019ve got to change my weird walk,\u2019\u201d says Rhys, adding that his apprehensions were only heightened when Heller insisted he view \u201cBeautiful Day\u201d with her in an editing bay. \u201cIt was kind of worse. There I was with the person who made it. There was nowhere to hide.\u201d\n\nAdvertisement\n\nYour scenes with Hanks often involved little dialogue. Did it take you awhile to get used to extended silences?\n\nYes, and it was weird, because [I\u2019d] think, \u201cThis will never make it in the movie. This will be cut.\u201d But Mari was big on it. She\u2019d say to us all the time, \u201cSlow down. Bathe in those silences.\u201d She\u2019d be, like, \u201cI\u2019ll decide in the edit what gets cut. Don\u2019t edit for me.\u201d There was a long scene between Tom and I, and that was when I started to get into the silences. The silences became more than the words.\n\nDid you know that \u201cBeautiful Day\u201d would resonate especially with men?\n\nAdvertisement\n\nMari called it early on. She was, like, \u201cI want to make this about men for men.\u201d She was always big on: \u201cYou have to talk about your feelings.\u201d \u201cYou have to take an equal role in whatever parenting is to you.\u201d \u201cIt\u2019s OK to say \u2018I love you\u2019 or to forgive someone.\u201d She was big on moments like where I put the [baby\u2019s] milk on [the burner] to heat. I thought, \u201cOh, this is going to get cut. The process takes too long for that shot.\u201d And she was, like, [determined voice] I\u2019m keeping this moment. I want someone see a man heat up a bottle of milk and feed a baby.\u201d\n\nYou spent time with Tom Junod. What did you want to learn?\n\nHis interview technique. He said it was very simple. It was at a time in the \u201890s when journalism had a lot more money and you could be embedded with the subject for like two weeks. He\u2019d just wait. He said, \u201cI\u2019d try and be as quiet as possible,\u201d and then there\u2019d be something, and he\u2019d be on it like a fox. With Fred, he met his match, the Zen master of deflection. I don\u2019t think Fred liked talking about himself. So the two circled each other for days. Then Fred latched onto something, and Tom was, like, [startled voice] \u201cHang on.\u201d\n\nDid you watch Fred Rogers\u2019 show when you were growing up in Cardiff, Wales?\n\nNo. One thing I appreciated was that I came to him with a blank canvas. I\u2019d nothing to cover up. No reverence, no animosity, nothing. But the deeper I dived, the more my love of him grew. Profoundly. He was incredible.\n\nTalk about the first time you saw Tom Hanks turn into the soft-spoken, cardigan-wearing groundbreaker.\n\nWhen we rehearsed, he wasn\u2019t doing anything Fred-like, just saying the lines. Then he went away. The first scene he shot was when he turns up with a pie. He had to walk in, and everyone was, like [tilts his face up with an eagerly expectant expression]. By that time we were all versed in Fred Rogers. Everyone was, like, \u201cWhat\u2019s [Tom] going to do?\u201d The only time I\u2019ve seen this before was with [Steven] Spielberg, where people are so star-struck, and he goes around putting everyone at ease. I kind of felt sorry for him.\n\nTo what do you owe your American accent, which is perhaps the best one in Hollywood today?\n\nAdvertisement\n\nI think it\u2019s a combination of things: An early childhood obsession with American television \u2014 \u201cStarsky and Hutch,\u201d \u201cA-Team,\u201d \u201cBaywatch\u201d [laughs]. American films, westerns especially. All the John Ford films. It was so exotic to me. Then I went to a drama school where the discipline of learning different dialects was very strong. I also have a kind of affliction: My ear is very musical, so if I hear a sound, I try to emulate it. This is something I\u2019ve done my whole life, much to the annoyance of some.", "keywords": [], "meta_keywords": [""], "tags": ["Things to Do", "Oscars"], "authors": ["Margy Rochlin"], "publish_date": "Wed Jan  1 00:00:00 2020", "summary": "", "article_html": "", "meta_description": "Welsh actor Matthew Rhys had to learn to slow down and 'bathe in the silences' for the Mister Rogers movie 'A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood.'", "meta_lang": "en", "meta_favicon": "/apple-touch-icon.png", "meta_data": {"og": {"title": "Matthew Rhys finds story in the silences of 'Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood'", "url": "https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/movies/story/2020-01-01/matthew-rhys-on-working-with-tom-hanks-in-beautiful-day", "image": {"identifier": "https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/5179172/2147483647/strip/true/crop/3448x1810+0+825/resize/1200x630!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F38%2F8a%2F077866d84e3b95865a69ef13d33d%2Fla-photos-1staff-473689-et-1123-matthew-rhys-004-gem.jpg", "url": "https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/5179172/2147483647/strip/true/crop/3448x1810+0+825/resize/1200x630!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F38%2F8a%2F077866d84e3b95865a69ef13d33d%2Fla-photos-1staff-473689-et-1123-matthew-rhys-004-gem.jpg", "width": 1200, "height": 630, "type": "image/jpeg", "alt": "473689_ET_1123_matthew_rhys_004_GEM.jpg"}, "description": "Welsh actor Matthew Rhys had to learn to slow down and 'bathe in the silences' for the Mister Rogers movie 'A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood.'", "site_name": "Los Angeles Times", "type": "article"}, "article": {"content_tier": "metered", "published_time": "2020-01-01T14:00:46.439", "opinion": "false", "section": "Movies", "tag": "Oscars"}, "twitter": {"card": "summary_large_image", "description": "Welsh actor Matthew Rhys had to learn to slow down and 'bathe in the silences' for the Mister Rogers movie 'A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood.'", "image": {"identifier": "https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/ff11ed9/2147483647/strip/true/crop/3448x1940+0+760/resize/1200x675!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F38%2F8a%2F077866d84e3b95865a69ef13d33d%2Fla-photos-1staff-473689-et-1123-matthew-rhys-004-gem.jpg", "alt": "473689_ET_1123_matthew_rhys_004_GEM.jpg"}, "site": "@latimes", "title": "Matthew Rhys finds story in the silences of 'Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood'"}, "fb": {"app_id": 119932621434123, "pages": 5863113009}, "viewport": "width=device-width, initial-scale=1, maximum-scale=5", "description": "Welsh actor Matthew Rhys had to learn to slow down and 'bathe in the silences' for the Mister Rogers movie 'A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood.'", "brightspot.contentId": "0000016e-ddf8-dc96-a9ee-ddfa0c530000", "brightspot.cached": "false"}, "canonical_link": "https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/movies/story/2020-01-01/matthew-rhys-on-working-with-tom-hanks-in-beautiful-day"}