Dear Evan Hansen: Ben Platt, 27, hits back at ‘rando jerks’ after he’s mocked with memes for portraying a teenager

Ben Platt has responded to “randos being jerks” about his age in relation to the Dear Evan Hansen trailer.

The Tony winner is reprising the title role, which he held in the original Broadway musical, for the upcoming movie adaptation.

This means Platt, 27, will portray a high school student in the film – a fact that became a talking point on social media after the trailer was unveiled on Tuesday (18 May).

Platt addressed the situation in a tweet on Wednesday. The message appears to have now been deleted from his account, but Variety has published a screenshot of it.

“Thank u from the bottom of my [heart] for the outpouring of trailer love yesterday,” the message read. “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.”

The article he linked to is a Vanity Fair piece in which Platt discussed reprising his role as Evan Hansen, and managing his age difference with the character.

“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 told the publication. “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.”

Dear Evan Hansen’s film adaptation is scheduled for release on 24 September 2021 in the US and 22 October 2021 in the UK.