Ben Platt Suggests That “Randos Being Jerks” About Him Playing A Teen Should Watch “Grease”
I just got called a “rando” by Ben Platt. That’s a cap in my feather I didn’t know I needed but I’ll take it! When the trailer for Dear Evan Hansen came out earlier this week, chuckleheads like myself poked fun at 27-year-old Ben trying to pass for a 17-year-old high school student. And also his Curly Sue locks. Well, Ben didn’t appreciate that. According to Variety, Ben tweeted then deleted a message thanking fans for their support but added “PS to the randos being jerks about age, read this great article and/or watch grease.” The article in question is from a Vanity Fair interview in which he explains what it took for him to pull on Evan’s signature polo shirt and arm cast again. And apparently, Ben grew that hair himself and I called it a wig. Oops, my bad!
And as for the Grease comparison, yeah dude, we know! It was silly then and it’s silly now. But Grease was FUN. DEH does not look fun at all. In the immortal words of Rizzo, whose look Ben stole for his transformation, DEH “sounds like a drag.” Variety reports:
The 27-year-old revisits his adolescent years in the “Dear Evan Hansen” film adaptation as an anxiety-riddled teen who gets tangled in a lie that spirals out of control. He originated the character on Broadway in 2017 to massive acclaim, so it’s understandable that Universal Pictures, the studio behind the movie, wanted to Platt to reprise the role that made him a star. Given the 10 years or so that separate Platt from the SATs, that upset some people.
After the trailer launched, Platt took to social media on Wednesday to respond to criticism about his casting. As one Twitter user puts it: “That dude looks like he’s the principal.”
“thank u from the bottom of my [heart] for the outpouring of trailer love yesterday,” Platt wrote in a since-deleted tweet. “the film required me to revisit areas of personal pain, so seeing ppl excited & moved makes it so deeply worth it. PS to the randos being jerks about age, read this great article and/or watch grease.”
Ben Platt calls out “the randos being jerks about [his] age” in the #DearEvanHansen movie in a now deleted tweet.
(https://t.co/TUf0pcJH27) pic.twitter.com/XhZ4IvS1KD
— Film Updates (@FilmUpdates) May 19, 2021
In the VF article, Ben says that there’s no way that Universal was going to take no for an answer. Notably, Ben did not mention that his dad produced the film. But the film’s director Stephen Chbosky also said he “couldn’t imagine anybody else playing it. It’s his part.”
Platt started shooting in September, just before his most recent birthday. “Much to my pleasant surprise, Universal seemed to be really hell-bent on making it, and specifically making it with me,” he said.
That meant Platt had to put himself back through the emotional and physical ringer. “On the one hand, it was much easier than performing in the show because obviously I wasn’t having to recreate the entire piece” each day, he said. “But physically it was very much the same experience. I’d lost about 15 pounds and did a very specific diet, grew my hair out, and was shaving to make sure that I didn’t look like I had five o’clock shadow all the time, you know. I was just stripping myself into being a teenager for the last time. For what is hopefully the last time.”
Hopefully? Ben recently played a high school student in Ryan Murphy’s The Politician as well. The only person who can stop Ben Platt from playing teenagers is Ben Platt himself.
Pic: Wenn.com