In performance, Ben Platt is a mellifluous singer and loose-limbed dancer, with a fizzy back-note of neurotic New York. The stage \u2013 most famously, as star of Dear Evan Hansen \u2013 is his safe space. In person, in a south London rehearsal room, he is sweet, earnest, nervy. He crosses his legs, knots his arms about him. The chat roams widely, the body language is wound tight.<\/p>\n
Platt talks frankly about anxiety, like it\u2019s his constant companion. So, how\u2019s that going? \u201cMy relationship with my husband is a huge factor in being able to manage anxiety. There\u2019s still highs and lows, but everything\u2019s more in my sights, because I thankfully have him. And having something creative to focus on is a big help.\u201d<\/p>\n
Luckily, Platt comes to London with both husband (actor Noah Galvin, starring in Hit Machine<\/a> at Soho theatre) and a creative project \u2013 the musical Midnight at the Never Get<\/a>. It takes us to a 1960s Greenwich Village gay bar (though the piece, Platt hints, \u201cunfolds into something deeper and stranger\u201d). Platt plays cabaret crooner Trevor. \u201cI don\u2019t really like the word flamboyant, because it\u2019s overused, but he\u2019s effervescent. He very much wears his heart on his sleeve.\u201d New Yorker David Cromer<\/a> directs, and Platt praises \u201chis very subtle hand. He watches what people are bringing, and then he\u2019ll go in and sculpt.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2018He wears his heart on his sleeve\u2019 \u2026 Ben Platt rehearsing for Midnight at the Never Get at the Menier Chocolate Factory, London. Photograph: Johan Persson<\/p>\n The \u201cextraordinary\u201d songs by Mark Sonnenblick<\/a> (KPop Demon Hunters) let Platt sing love lyrics to another man. Does that make a difference to him? \u201cOne hundred per cent. I grew up doing musicals \u2013 years and years, so many shows \u2013 but never did I get to play a queer character on stage. To play a three-dimensional character who is singing expressly queer songs with details of queer romance, it does feel so liberating.\u201d<\/p>\n Midnight at the Never Get isn\u2019t explicitly political, but lands at a moment when the progress of gay rights seems to have halted, even reversed, in Platt\u2019s home nation. \u201cBeing American feels quite helpless and scary,\u201d he admits. \u201cBut being in New York I find optimistic and hopeful.\u201d New mayor Zohran Mamdani represents \u201ca different class of politics, as opposed to abusive painful noise for the sake of abusive painful noise\u201d.<\/p>\n double quotation markTo play a three-dimensional character who sings expressly queer songs feels so liberating<\/p>\n At 32, Platt has a quarter century of stage experience. His first school show, at six, saw him don a sparkly jacket as the prince in Cinderella. \u201cI mostly remember the energy simmer of getting ready, excited to be in that fizziness.\u201d Professional gigs followed quickly \u2013 anxious young Ben was also focused and self-directed. \u201cI wanted to grow up quickly,\u201d he reflects. \u201cI was so hungry to be like the adults I was working with, and be counted among them.\u201d<\/p>\n The show that made Platt \u2013 as both performer and person \u2013 was Dear Evan Hansen<\/a>, playing the problematic high-school hero from early read-throughs and on to Broadway. \u201cI had never been asked to go to those emotional lengths before. The material was so strong, it forced me to rise to the occasion.\u201d Committing to the show, he reflects, meant \u201cputting my entire life on mute. I put my own development on the back burner, and just lived in the space of this character for many years.\u201d<\/p>\n Platt emerged with a Tony and in 2021 was cast to lead the subsequent movie<\/a>. This was less joyful: Platt was derided as too old at 27, too much the producer\u2019s son. \u201cIt was tough, but it\u2019s a lesson you have to learn in this business, which is sometimes it doesn\u2019t go well and you have to let the rollercoaster dip so that it can go back up. The fact that it was that character made it a little more painful \u2013 but we move forward.\u201d So the brouhaha didn\u2019t tarnish his bond to Evan Hansen? \u201cNo, no. It was completely life-changing in every way. I\u2019m happy that the movie exists, and hope history will be kind to it.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2018It was tough\u2019 \u2026 Ben Platt as Evan Hansen with Kaitlyn Dever as Zoe Murphy in the Dear Evan Hansen movie. Photograph: Universal<\/p>\n Earlier this year, Platt worked the art theme of the Met Gala, his jacket<\/a> referencing the Seurat painting which inspired Stephen Sondheim\u2019s Sunday in the Park With George<\/a>. That\u2019s the role Platt covets above all others. \u201cGeorge, George, George,\u201d he sighs. \u201cIt is everything that is meaningful to me in a musical. It\u2019s about the sacrifice of being an artist \u2013 how you have to live somewhat in your mind, and that\u2019s a beautiful thing, but also a hard truth.\u201d<\/p>\n Platt may consider the composer \u201cmy rabbi, my imam, I live my life by his words\u201d \u2013 but he has not yet done a professional stage Sondheim. On film, however, he is deep into making Merrily We Roll Along. Sondheim\u2019s 1981 musical follows its central trio in reverse, from jaded middle age back to youthful optimism \u2013 and director Richard Linklater has been filming it forwards, in real time. \u201cThe musical takes place over 19 or 20 years,\u201d Platt explains. If there are three years between scenes, \u201cwe wait three years exactly, so our characters grow the same amount\u201d. Platt and co-stars Paul Mescal and Beanie Feldstein are now about a third of the way through. \u201cWe\u2019re meant to finish in 2038. I\u2019ll be 45. It\u2019s completely insane, and also like a family reunion that happens every couple of years.\u201d<\/p>\n Any other ambitions? \u201cLike every gay person in the world, I hope to do Angels [in America, by Tony Kushner] at some point. But the ideal scenario is always for something new to come crashing through.\u201d<\/p>\n