Ben Platt on Dear Evan Hansen and How He Is Able to Sing Through Tears

With director Stephen Chbosky’s (The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Wonder) Dear Evan Hansen arriving in theaters on September 24th, I recently got to speak with Ben Platt about bringing the Tony Award-winning Broadway musical to movie screens. If you’re not familiar with Dear Evan Hansen, the high school-set film is written for the screen by the show’s Tony-winning writer Steven Levenson, with music and lyrics by the show’s Oscar, Grammy, and Tony-winning songwriting team of Benj Pasek & Justin Paul. The story is about a high school outsider who gains friendship and fame by falsely claiming that he had a tight bond with one of his deceased classmates. The film and play is a powerful look at isolation, social anxiety, and grief and shines a light on the importance of talking about mental health. Dear Evan Hansen also stars Kaitlyn Deaver, Amy Adams, Julianne Moore, Amandla Stenberg, Danny Pino, Colton Ryan, and Nik Dodani. During the interview, he talked about what it was like on the last day of film