Dear Evan Hansen: Ben Platt opens up about ‘horrific’ internet making film experience difficult

Social media and the rest of the internet can be a really difficult thing for a teenager to deal with. It can be even harder for an almost 30-year-old playing a teenager on screen. When Ben Platt started playing the role of Evan Hansen in the Broadway musical, Dear Evan Hansen, back in 2015, he was in his early 20s. For adult actors portraying teenagers, that is already pushing what you can pass for unless you’re a Michael J. Fox or a Ralph Macchio. Once the film adaptation came around, he was in his late 20s.

Ben Platt opens up in a report from The Hollywood Reporter about his experience with the film being difficult as they tried to adapt the Tony Award-winning musical into a movie to a disastrous degree. Platt explains,

It was definitely a disappointing experience and difficult, and it definitely opened my eyes to the internet and how horrific it can be. You’d think, after doing Dear Evan Hansen onstage for four years, I would have already known that. I try my best to focus on people who tell me it was moving to them and they really felt seen by it. It is very easy for the good to get drowned out by the bad.”

When the film’s trailer debuted, it had been a punching bag for a variety of reasons, including the fact that Platt was clearly not able to pass as a teenager despite having played the character already for years. Platt vented his frustration on Twitter about the “randos being jerks about age” last year. He added that he has since deleted his account, “I find that Twitter is almost exclusively for tearing people down. I wasn’t getting anything positive, and it’s been really nice to be away.” 

The movie flopped and was critically panned despite sporting talent, including Kaitlyn Dever, Julianne Moore, and Amy Adams. Platt hasn’t let the whole endeavor sour him on the project, though. He expressed that he was “really grateful” for the time he spent playing the role for four years on stage, which earned him a Tony for Best Actor.