It's ‘a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood’—especially in Cobb County, where there is a major local tie to the new movie in theaters today.

Starring Oscar winner Tom Hanks as Mr. Fred Rogers, “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood” was inspired by Marietta resident Tom Junod’s 1998 piece on the icon in Esquire Magazine.

WSB Radio’s Michelle Wright spoke with Junod who tells her the movie captures the true essence of love and compassion of his friend, Fred Rogers.

“He was inexhaustible when it came to ministering to people, and the thing that I love about the movie, is that is shows that—and it shows some of the cost of that,” Junod says.

>>LISTEN TO JUNOD’S FULL INTERVIEW WITH WSB’ MICHELLE WRIGHT BELOW.

And Junod tells WSB that Rogers did it with flare. “Fred was one of those guys—the minute you meet him, he maybe has a purpose that you have no idea about and he’s three steps ahead of you the entire time.”

He adds, “He had so much more game than I had. He was so much smarter.”

Junod continues, by saying, “He had so much more purpose. I was just kind of stumbling through and kind of just trying to keep up with him. Right away I knew that he was a remarkable person.”

While many facts were changed—for example, Junod lived in Marietta and not in New York while writing the piece on Rogers—he tells WSB the movie stays completely true to Rogers’ generosity and kindness.

“When I went into the streets of New York City with him and saw him react to crowds,” Junod recalls, “And there were crowds gathered around him; crowds of children, crowds of adults, crowds of all people. And he talked to all of them in the exact same way, and engaged with all of them as individuals.”

Junod adds, “He had this incredible gift of giving people what they needed at that moment. It was as if he saw through you in some sort of way.”

When Junod met Rogers, he says he was trying to sort through his next steps in his career and moreover, how to move forward with his life.

Junod says there is a character in the movie based somewhat on his own father. “My dad had really specific ideas of what ‘manhood’ entailed. Fred turned all those ideas upside down, and gave me sort of a choice about how to go forward. I’m still grateful for him.”

He adds, “I think the thing that Fred was able to do, at least with me, was sort of redefine what a hero might be.”

When Junod received the first draft of a script for the movie, he says he saw how in some ways, the plot would dramatically diverge from the plot of his own life. It was then that he asked the filmmakers to change the name of the character loosely based on him from ‘Tom Junod’ to ‘Lloyd Vogle’.

“I thought that was going to protect me from the emotional resonance of this movie,” Junod explains.

However, upon seeing his first screening of the movie, Junod says he was unexpectedly overcome with actor Matthew Rhys’ portrayal of his friendship with Rogers.

“The emotional resonance came at me and came at me hard,” Junod recalls, adding “I walked out of that screening [and] my knees were wobbling.”

The movie, Junod says, “really forced me to ask a lot of really big questions about myself back then and myself now.” Junod remained friends with Mr. Rogers until his death and he is still friends with his wife, Joanne Rogers, today.

“I could never have imagined that 21 years later we’d still be talking about him,” Junod concludes.

"A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood," rated PG, is officially out in theaters across the U.S.