Dear Evan Hansen actor Ben Platt’s ‘first love’ made him keep relationship a secret
Ben Platt attends ELLE x Ferragamo Hollywood Rising Party at Sunset Tower on 11 October 2019 in Los Angeles, California. (Rodin Eckenroth/WireImage)
Ben Platt has opened up about how his “first love” kept their relationship a secret.
The Dear Evan Hansen star, 27, told Out how his new album, Reverie, includes a letter to himself as a teen grappling with being gay.
“He barely looks at you / ‘Cause you’re both afraid that people might suppose,” he sings in the song “Dark Times”:
The song, Platt reflected, relates to his first time experiencing love as a teenager.
“My first real love experience relationship was with someone when I was a teenager who was really unhappy with himself and very much kept [being gay] a secret,” he said.
“And by proxy, I [had] to keep who I was a secret around his friends.”
Ben Platt wants ‘everyone to get the oppurtunity’ to act, regardless of sexuality
Roughly a decade on, and Ben Platt has since settled down with “a partner I really love, Noah Galvin, my boyfriend”.
Galvin and Platt have been dating for more than a year now.
Galvin actually picked up the lead role in the Broadway musical Dear Evan Hansen after Platt, who originated it, stood down.
Galvin, 27, helped Platt push through his “fear and apprehension” about reprising the role of Evan Hansen in the 2021 film adaptation of the musical.
“[He] as a really unique ability to help me to be present where I am,” Platt reflected, “and to make the life that’s happening day to day too wonderful to not want to be on the ground for it.”
On the simmering topic of straight actors being cast in LGBT+ roles, Platt said he has no strict attitude towards it – his character Hansen, for example, is straight.
“I would love to see a queer actor play that role,” he said, “but I think that the greater question is just making sure that everybody is getting the same opportunity.”
For Platt, the film version of Dear Evan Hansen was about reminding a world worn down by the coronavirus pandemic that they are in no way alone.
“Dear Evan Hansen will really hopefully make people feel less alone, which I think everyone really needs at the moment,” Platt said.
“And then my album, I hope it brings some joy. I hope that it brings some escape.”
