'Dear Evan Hansen' star Ben Platt talks crying his eyes out, struggling with anxiety, and facing down critics who say he's too old to play a high-schooler.
Today, however, Platt seems placid enough, sipping a ginger ale on the sidewalk patio of a New York bistro not far from both Theater Row and the apartment he’s lived in since he was playing Evan. He wears baggy shorts, a hippyish beard, and sandals that show off toenails painted a navy hue. He attended the Met Ball last night, which he says was “actually really fun. The first time I went in 2017, I didn’t really know anybody, so I walked around the cocktail hour and left. I was too nervous.
High school could have been another minefield, but while his private school of Harvard-Westlake comprised a “whole athlete half of the grade that I barely knew,” Platt fell in easily with the artsy clique — including Beanie Feldstein, who is still a close friend to this day — that “took [themselves] very seriously and were just as theater-obsessed as I was and nerdy in the same ways.” And not evennerdy.
With the success of the play , a film adaptation was inevitable. But Platt, who originated the role on Broadway at 23, wasn’t sure the movie would be made before he aged out. And, after a number of years out of Evan’s skin, he had reservations about taking the part back up again. “I feel grateful that they didn’t want to replace me,” he says. “But part of me was like, ‘I don’t know if I want to re-enter that space.’ I kind of laid myself bare for a long time.
The last scene Platt shot was one that hadn’t been in the play, which allowed him to say goodbye to all the individual parts of the original show before saying a final goodbye to Evan. Developing a stable, adult relationship while thrown into the setting of his youth turned out to be a creative boon for Platt, who spent much of the time Galvin was there working on his second album,. “I was kind of caught between my younger, teenaged, nostalgic self and then also this more evolved-ish version of myself in a way that made for good music,” Platt tells me. The last time he and Galvin had to say goodbye was the last time Platt can remember having a decent come-apart.
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