Ben Platt revives his Tony-winning title role onscreen, playing a lonely teen with debilitating mental issues who—following a genuine misunderstanding—lies about being friends with troubled fellow student Connor (Colton Ryan), who’s tragically taken his own life. Co-starring Amy Adams, Julianne Moore, Amandla Stenberg, Kaitlyn Dever, Jared Kleinman and Danny Pino, Dear Evan Hansen opens in theaters nationwide on Fri., Sept. 24. Parade.com spoke exclusively with Chbosky about Dear Evan Hansen, controversies around the film and its source material, and the importance of coming-of-age stories. (Warning: Mild spoilers for Dear Evan Hansen ahead!)
Why was Dear Evan Hansen your next project?
I saw it about three years ago on Broadway, and I loved the show. I went in blind, I was just taken with the original story. Some of the emotional places they went were very raw and honest. I love the music and the characters, and it felt like a natural fit, like a darker cousin to Perks of Being a Wallflower, with a lot of the same thematic elements I loved the musical aspect there; I’d been wanting to direct a musical for a long, long time and was just searching for the right one.
Perks itself was certainly unafraid of going to some dark places, so it’s interesting to hear this called a “darker cousin.”
I guess because Charlie is a complete innocent. He and his friends don’t do anything that could be considered morally ambiguous. Evan tells this terrible lie; that’s what I meant by the darker side of it.
Are you drawn to morally ambiguous characters?
Not usually, but in the case of Evan, I was fascinated, not only with the lie to Connor’s family, but also by the lie he perpetuates to the very end with his mother. He tried to kill himself. The entire movie I see is almost leading to that confession, which also leads to the confession about Connor. In so many ways, the movie is about the secrets we keep.Whoever came up with the line “we’re only as sick as our secrets” stumbled across something rather brilliant, and this is a case study of that.
Some critics outright condemn Evan’s actions. He’s certainly polarizing.
He is polarizing, and that’s what makes him interesting. If people are going to dismiss a 17-year-old person without a friend in the world, a latch-key, suicidal kid whose father abandoned him—at the end of the day, we’re all entitled to our opinions, and that’s fine. But to me, there’s a lot more than meets the eye here, and I certainly didn’t make the movie—and I don’t think the authors wrote the show—for the haters and the morally judgmental. We made it for the young people who understand this and could really use a story like this—and of course for the parents who are trying desperately to support them. And at the end of the day, if it helps one person it was worth it.
Through both Perks and Dear Evan Hansen, there runs a thematic current of young men struggling with severe trauma. Is this a subject that appeals to you?
Absolutely it’s a subject that appeals to me. It’s very underserved. In so many ways, the silence is what perpetuates the problem. The more we can talk about these things— hopefully without dismissing them morally [laughs]—the more we can talk about honest emotions that lead to this behavior, the more the behavior will go away. I am very drawn to these subjects.
What are some of your favorite coming-of-age films and novels?
My favorite movie of all time is Dead Poets Society. I saw that when I was 19; it gave me hope for a brighter future than I knew The Breakfast Club is really close on that list; the characters played by Anthony Michael Hall and Emilio Estevez perfectly articulated how I felt. They might as well have been reading my mind. Harold and Maude in terms of being an outsider, The Graduate in terms of not knowing what the f*** you’re gonna do [laughs]. Fast Times at Ridgemont High in terms of, it’s okay to laugh while this is going on. Catcher in the Rye would be one of the more obvious. Holden’s honesty—not his anger, but his honesty—meant a lot to me. I really related to his search for meaning and grounding in a world that feels like it’s floating for him. There are so many; I was a child of the 80s. It was the heyday of the Spielberg touch and Amblin, John Hughes and Chris Columbus. I was a product of all of that. I’m really that I grew up in a time when movies for my age group were on the forefront. It’s been great in the years since to be a part of the renaissance, at least in terms of YA fiction. Perks and (Laurie Halse Anderson)’s Speak came out the same year in ’99. There’s John Green who I think is tremendous, Gayle Foreman and of course R.J Palacio and Wonder. There’s a lot to choose from.
Heathers is another picture from that heyday era that’s aging beautifully.
Oh, Heathers is incredible. I remember when I saw Dear Evan Hansen I thought, “Oh wow, they found a way to turn Heathers into a tearjerker” [laughs].
Characters we care about in Dear Evan Hansen suffer backlash and in effect get “canceled” online, notably Connor’s family late in the picture. What are your thoughts on cancel culture?
My thought is that I feel cancel culture is unsustainable. If it gets to the point where everybody is afraid to say anything, it’s only going to lead to more silence and more secrets, which is ultimately going to hurt people. I think a free exchange of ideas is incredibly important—not to say that hate speech, when it’s truly intended as hate speech, truly has much of a place—but that’s how I feel about it. I’m a bit of a history buff. I was taught in film school by men who had been blacklisted for something completely different in the McCarthy era, Several of my professors had been blacklisted quite literally. I remember how they spoke about those times and how afraid everybody was. That left a real impression on me. I saw the effect on their lives and their scars from it, and I saw the historical context of any type of cancel. Things come and they go; it’s wrong to call it a fad because it’s more profound than a fad—but if you look at history it’s unsustainable. Hence, I treat it that way.
There’s a lot of power in someone learning a valuable lesson through making a mistake.
For sure. It’s very easy to lionize or trash anybody anonymously. It’s much harder to look someone in the eye, and I find that much more interesting. Online celebrity or online hate kind of stays online. I don’t see it as having much of an enormous place in our hearts. I think it’s dangerous to let it seep into our actual lives and relationships too much. And we can choose to read it or not. The older I’ve gotten and the more I’ve seen it, the more I just don’t read it.
Ben Platt has a beautiful voice, and he clearly understands the inner turmoil and mental issues of Evan Hansen. Do you have a comment for critics who say he’s too old [at 27] for the part now onscreen?
My comment is I built the movie around him. I didn’t think he was too old to play the part; I’ve directed other movies about teenagers, and I’ve cast and directed actors much older than Ben and no one said boo. I think the only reason it’s coming up is we all know the tape—you can see the Emmys performance from five years ago on YouTube—so there’s context.To me, he is Evan, from the very first workshop. I couldn’t imagine anyone else playing the part. It was his part, and in many ways preserving that performance and that remarkable character was one of the main motivations to make the movie. If people see the trailer and think whatever they think, fine. If you see the movie and what you’re thinking about by the end of it is age, then the movie wasn’t for you. And that’s fine.
Amy Adams is, as always, resplendent here. What can you tell us about working with her?
I’ve been an Amy Adams fan since day one; I’ve wanted to work with her for two decades, so it was a dream come true. I think what she did for Cynthia Murphy was remarkable. Her grief drives the story. At the beginning, Evan tells the truth, but she can’t hear the truth. Amy’s as nice as you’ve ever heard, she’s beyond professional. I can’t say enough about her acting, her willingness to pay genuine tribute to people who are grieving, and for what she articulated as a mother. I always feel the best performances are autobiography. They reveal something about the artist, whether they intend to or not.
You adapted Rent and co-wrote the live-action Beauty and the Beast; now this is your musical directing debut. Do you want to make more musicals?
I would love to. This was my first time directing; I’ve tasted blood and I want more. I love music so much—you can see it in my other movies—so go to directly to the source and have people sing was a thrill to do.
What are your all-time favorite movie musicals?
To me, the granddaddy of them all is Cabaret, on stage and on screen. Sam Mendes’ version was one of my favorite stage shows of all time. I’m a real classicist: Whether it’s a modern classic like Hamilton or Fun Home, or an established classic like Cabaret, Fiddler on the Roof, West Side Story, A Chorus Line or The Sound of Music. I see whatever I can, and I’d be hard-pressed to find one I don’t like on some level.
Cabaret really is one of the ultimate movie musicals. No element has aged, and it’s approaching 50 years old.
The film is incredible. And on the more indie side of things in more recent years, there’s the movie Once. It has that wonderful live singing and it feels contemporary, true and grounded. Those two movies were probably my biggest influences on [Dear Evan Hansen].
Another musical that sort of defies convention and is aging like wine is Moulin Rouge!
Oh yeah, Moulin Rouge! is amazing. That was a real shot in the arm the genre needed. I still can’t believe [director Baz Luhrmann] didn’t get nominated. I love that movie.
After Perks, you wrote a horror novel called Imaginary Friend. Would you ever make a horror movie?
I would love to make a horror movie. As a matter of fact, I want to adapt Imaginary Friend. I highly recommend the audiobook. Christine Lakin does an amazing job reading it; I actually directed her.
What scary movies do you love the most?
John Carpenter’s Halloween, The Shining, Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead because I’m a Pittsburgh boy and George Romero was the local hero. I thought The Ring was great. Sixth Sense was great, and of course The Exorcist. I just saw the original Poltergeist for the first time in about two decades. It’s such a good movie, and JoBeth Williams is incredible in it.I’ve also just rewatched all three seasons of Stranger Things because my daughter loves horror. She loves the show and Millie Bobby Brown.
Who inspires you the most?
Right now, after going through the pandemic like everybody else, and being away from my family for four months in Atlanta to make this movie, and all the demands of directing film, honestly my main inspiration is my family. My wife Liz and my two children. They’re the reason why I do things now. I want to make movies and write books that will make them proud. It’s them, and until the day I die, it will be them. Dear Evan Hansen opens in theaters Fri, Sept. 24.
