TEEN SLATE
Don’t let Jordan Fisher’s youthful face fool you: Broadway’s new Evan Hansen has a career any veteran actor would kill for
JORDAN Fisher seems to be in a state of extended adolescence. For the past 10 years, he’s played key roles in such quintessentially high-school projects as Disney’s “Teen Beach Movie,” “The Secret Life of the American Teenager” and Fox’s “Grease Live!” “I’m grown,” the 25-year-old assures The Post. “I just look 17 when I shave my face.” Fisher will be clean-shaven again in the Netflix rom-com “To All the Boys: P.S. I Still Love You,” premiering Feb. 12 — and in Broadway’s hot ticket, “Dear Evan Hansen,” whose starring role he jumped into Tuesday. “I have never had a more difficult time learning something,” says the actor and singer, whose many tattoos include one of Alexander Hamilton. Then again, Fisher’s past projects have never been simple. In 2016, he put out an EP of pop-R&B music, and that same year he took over the dual role of John Laurens and Philip Hamilton in Broadway’s “Hamilton.” The next year saw him win “Dancing With the Stars” — and 2019 found him playing Mark Cohen in a live broadcast of “Rent.”
Even so, Fisher sees Evan as an entirely different species. “Evan speaks before he thinks, and then halfway through, quick, stops himself and then restructures his sentences,” the actor says. “It’s a way of existing and being that is the opposite of me.”
Luckily, the Alabama native has had some guidance. He’s seen the character played by Ben Platt, Michael Lee Brown, Taylor Trensch and Andrew Barth Feldman, who on Sunday held an emotional “passing of the polo shirt” ceremony to induct Fisher into the show.
“Every Evan is different,” Fisher concludes.
He says he plans to draw on his own mental-health journey for his portrayal. Fisher’s spoken about how his maternal grandmother and step-grandfather adopted and raised him after his 16-year-old mother struggled with substance abuse. Like Evan, he’s dealt with anxiety and depression. He goes to therapy regularly and makes it a point to take a break when he needs to.
He also calls himself a perfectionist to a fault, which gets in the way of multitasking. “I have a heightened sense of urgency,” he says, explaining that he finds it hard not to treat everything as the most important thing.
Helping him along is a strong support system — chiefly, his fiancée, nutritionist Ellie Woods. The two met while performing in a theater conservatory in Birmingham, Ala., more than a decade ago. Fisher was 13 and Woods was 9. They’re set to get married in July.
Having love in his life helped Fisher turn up the charm in his role as John Ambrose McLaren in the sequel to the wildly popular “To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before,” based on the books by Jenny Han.
His character complicates things between the muchbeloved couple Lara Jean and Peter Kavinsky, played by Lana Condor and Noah Centineo.
John, like Peter, is one of five accidental recipients of Lara Jean’s secretly scribed love letters.
“Regardless of however you feel about your first love, there is still some connective tissue there that evolves and changes over time,” says Fisher. “John Ambrose brings a calibrated sophistication to this love triangle that Peter could never in his wildest dreams ever accomplish.”
While Peter’s a jock, Fisher says, “John Ambrose marches closer to the beat of Lara Jean’s drum.”
He says it’s fun going head-tohead with Centineo, a k a the Internet’s boyfriend, because the two are friends in real life.
“We’re homies,” says Fisher. “If you’re really good friends with somebody outside of set, it’s so much easier to have a tiff [onscreen].”
Fisher’s even rooting against his own character. “I [love] Lara Jean and Peter Kavinsky,” is how he describes his fanboy obsession with the two. “I think that they’re a precious couple.”