First Look: Tom Hanks Sports Serious Sweater Game as Mr. Rogers in ‘You Are My Friend’

Tom Hanks

Photo: Sony Pictures

Sony Pictures released the first photo of Tom Hanks as Mr. Rogers in the upcoming film You Are My Friend. The 62-year-old Oscar winner looks dapper in Rogers’ signature lewk: a red sweater with a button-up shirt and tie, and khakis. The movie won’t be out until October of 2019, but surely it will continue proving that Hanx can do no wrong and that he’s the hero America needs, today, tomorrow and forever.

Director Marielle Heller clarified that the movie won’t be a straight up biopic. She told EW: “I disliked that when it got announced it was characterized as such. It’s really not [a biopic]. It’s a movie that’s largely focused on a reporter and [Mr. Rogers’] relationship to his life, and how [the reporter’s] whole world changes when coming in contact with Fred Rogers.”

That reporter is award-winning journalist Tom Junod, who became friendly with Rogers while writing a 1998 profile on the cultural icon for Esquire magazine.

You Are My Friend follows on the heels of Morgan Neville’s documentary, Won’t You Be My Neighbor?, which is now available on Blu-ray and VOD. (See this now, dammit.)

It’ll be a long wait to witness Hanx’s sweater game in action, but it’s comforting to know that one of our most beloved actors will be stepping into the shoes of one of the most beloved children’s TV hosts of all time. (Insert Futurama “Shut up and take my money” meme here.)