Getting to share more of who I am has made me feel fulfilled in a new way
PITCH PERFECT AND BROADWAY STAR BEN PLATT TALKS TO KERRI-ANN ROPER ABOUT REVEALING A DIFFERENT SIDE TO HIMSELF WITH HIS DEBUT ALBUM
BEN PLATT is one of those people who’s good at everything. He’s conquered Broadway with awardwinning performances in Dear Evan Hansen, for which he won a Tony award, and has starred in two of the Pitch Perfect films.
A scroll through his Instagram page is like a digital stroll down the Hollywood Walk of Fame, featuring pictures of him with A-list stars such as Meryl Streep, Morgan Freeman, Kate Hudson and more, all of whom are fans of his work.
It’s comforting, then, to hear the vivacious 25-year-old American confess that there’s something he’s not particularly good at.
“I’m horrible at team sports,” he says down the phone. “Absolutely terrible. I can run and cycle, and I can do athletic stuff where it’s just on me to get healthy and all that, but I crack under the pressure when it comes to team sports.”
It’s perhaps fitting then that his latest project is a solo one.
He’s swapped the bright lights of Broadway to record and release his first solo music album, titled Sing Me To Instead.
The venture came about while he was recording the music for Dear Evan Hansen with Atlantic Records.
“Serendipitously, while [a music album] was being suggested, I was also moving into a new apartment in New York that finally had room for me to have my own piano, which I haven’t had since I was living at home with my parents.
“So I started tinkering and trying earnestly for the first time to write songs from my own perspective and in my own style and I liked the things that were coming out.
“I shared them with the folks at Atlantic and we kind of went from there,” he explains.
The product is an album of 12 songs which he has co-written.
Talking about making his own music, he says: “I think it was all about figuring out the balance between not throwing out all the skills, tactics and abilities I’ve
learned over time as an actor and d performer of musical theatre, just for the sake of throwing them out.
“But also not leaning on them to the point where I couldn’t listen to my gut and instinct and be as organic and as authentic as possible. So it was trying to combine that background with this new goal of sharing purely just myself, rather than focusing on transforming or disguising into something else to convey someone else’s message.”
Having “voiced” characters on stage and on screen, you have to wonder if he felt nervous about sharing his own voice in his music.
“It was scarier in anticipation just because I had never done it before and it was brand new territory. It’s such a lovely safety net to do pieces as an actor because you know you’re sharing your abilities and your emotions, but it’s a separation because there’s no real sacrifice.
“You’re not saying ‘I endorse any of these things’ or ‘this is what I feel’, so I think in concept it was – but having ripped the Band-Aid off when we put the first few songs out, I think the joy of seeing people relate and respond to it really outweighed any anxiety or fear I had and now I’m just anxious to keep doing it.”
We are speaking the day after Ben has appeared in front of an audience at the Cambridge Union to talk to the students.
“It was great. It was slightly intimidating because it’s a very hallowed place and everybody was very intelligent, but it was really fun and d the h kd kids were lovely l l and d sweet and asked very insightful questions,” he says.
Ben spent a month in London while writing the album and says three of the songs he wrote during his stay here feature on it.
“I loved all the time I got to spend here,” he enthuses.
His visits also allowed him to indulge in two of his biggest passions.
He says: “I grew up coming to see theatre and I flew here when the Harry Potter play opened a few years ago to see it. Harry Potter and theatre are two of my greatest passions, so when they combined, I could not be stopped!”
He adds that he spends most of his London visits taking in as much theatre as he can.
Which brings us back to his other love – music and his album, which he says, was also a chance for him to show fans a new side of himself.
He explains: “I’ve been fortunate to play a lot of characters that are very much in the same family, which is sort of this, social outcast, very anxious, somewhat nerdy introverted guy. I think there are certainly pieces of me in that but that isn’t who I am.
“Up until this point that’s the only persona I’ve really had the ability to identify with because that’s the only persona that’s been a public one.
“So I think, to get to share more of the nuances of who I am and the other pieces of me and the more complicated bits that are not just this hdk dork, really ll made d me feel very fulfilled in a new way.”
Last year Ben collaborated with Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda on the song Found/ Tonight, which was a mash-up of The Story of Tonight from Hamilton and the song You Will Be Found from Dear Evan Hansen. All proceeds were in aid of March For Our Lives, the rally held to protest against gun violence in the US.
Ben is full of praise for LinManuel. He says: “He’s really started to bridge the gap between musical theatre and popular music with Hamilton and the roaring success of that I think really set the stage for Dear Evan Hansen and The Greatest Showman, and all of these other things that have started to close that gap, which is something I’ve been really hoping would happen.
“It harks back to the Sixties and a time when the number-one songs on the radios were the songs from the musicals. I’m very happy that the stigma around anything that has something to do with theatre being too earnest or too vulnerable is going away and I think he’s a big leader in that.
“I was just really honoured he asked me to collaborate on that song with him for March For Our Lives. Gun control is something I’m very passionate about and something every American should be passionate about at the moment. “To get to work with him, period, as an artist was really great, but to get to do it for something like that felt like a very special opportunity.”