HIGH SCHOOL CONFIDENTIAL
Platt stars in Netflix’s buzzy series that mixes students and politics
For a leading man, Ben Platt is on the unassuming side. As he sits opposite me in a London hotel, I think how endearingly uncertain he looks in his baby-blue sweater and trousers. He doesn’t immediately seem like a man who can confidently boast of having won a Grammy, an Emmy and a Tony before the age of 25.
Platt is a star principally because of his lead role in the multiaward-winning stage musical Dear Evan Hansen, about a misfit high school student who goes to extreme lengths to gain acceptance. The musical’s co-composer Benj Pasek has spoken of Platt’s combination of talents. “It’s difficult to say if he’s a better singer or actor,” he has said.
Now Platt is poised to gain an international audience with Netflix’s The Politician, in which he plays Payton Hobart, an 18-yearold from a wealthy family who, with his millions of dollars, runs a campaign to become student body president at Saint Sebastian High School.
It is an election to which the teenage characters bring such devotion that it may as well be a real run for the White House. That is the point, in fact — it is a warm-up for the inevitable.
The series, which features Gwyneth Paltrow as Payton’s mother, is fabulous fun, full of high school melodrama and conniving characters, and confronts some of life’s serious subjects — as good comedy often does. Cancer, divorce, assassination — all are dealt with at the high speed and intensity that will be familiar to anyone who loved Glee (it’s created by the same team of Ryan Murphy, Brad Falchuk and Ian Brennan).
For Platt, it is also an insight into how much acting is required to be a successful politician (part of the reason there is such crossover between the two professions) but, ironically, the show helped Platt realize it’s not a game he wants to get into. “I’m just not one for politics,” he says. “It’s not for me. I don’t think I could ever compartmentalize my emotions in the way that’s necessary to move forward as a politician.”
One thing he does share with his character, however, is that he discovered his passion when he was very young, and doggedly pursued it. The son of Marc Platt, one-time president of production at Universal Pictures, the younger Platt joined a youth theatre at age five or six and later attended Los Angeles’ Harvard-Westlake School, which has a motto — “They can because they think they can” — that could be applied to any number of scions of wealthy families seeking high office. The school — which charges fees of US$38,400 a year — also produced actors such as Shirley Temple, Jake and Maggie Gyllenhaal, and Jason Segel.
Platt, like Evan Hansen, suffered from anxiety in high school, but believes his experience could have been much worse. “I was really lucky and went to a school where there were other people who were just as strange and arty as I was,” he says.
“I was a theatre geek to the max. That’s where I found my community. I sort of take for granted the way that helped me to cope. I think a lot of kids dealing with anxiety or depression have a hard time seeing outside of the world of high school because the stakes feel so high.”
Dear Evan Hansen had a profound impact on many of the young people who saw it and Platt says he struggled with “boundaries” on social media from fans who failed to separate him from his character. Now, he says, he wants to play parts that are further away from his personality.
That could be tricky. Platt came out as gay when he was 12 and believes there are still television executives who “have trouble seeing beyond someone’s personal life.” Kristen Stewart said recently she’d been told to stop holding her girlfriend’s hand in public to improve her chances of appearing in a Marvel movie.
“The ultimate goal is for there to be this equilibrium where both sides can be true; where queer people can tell hetero-normative stories and vice versa.
“I would just hope that we could perpetuate the idea that we can all tell whatever story our talents are right for.”
London Daily Telegraph