Days after making his Radio City Music Hall debut (and just before stepping onto the 92Y stage with two-time Tony Award winner Judith Light), Ben Platt appeared on The View October 2.
Playing a high schooler running for student body president (and eventually President of the United States), Joy Behar asked Platt who he favors in the Democratic primary. Watch the video above for his answer.
But Platt also spoke about his character’s stop-at-nothing attitude. Though Platt never had political ambitions, he did take inspiration from his own life. “I think mostly I drew from how ambitious I was to become a performer,” he said. “I knew that I wanted to be an actor since I was six or seven years old.”
The actor also spoke about how proud he is to be part of a show in which diversity—particularly when it comes to sexual orientation and gender identity—is prominent but not a plot point. “One of my favorite things about this particular piece as a queer actor is to have characters that are queer all over the spectrum and all through the plot, and it's never a self-conscious part of the identity of each character,” he said. “There’s nothing traumatic about it, there's nothing precious about it, it's just what colors the characters and their relationships, and I hope that's hopefully the world we're headed towards.”
The Politician dropped September 27, one of Ryan Murphy’s many projects with the streaming platform. Among his theatre-adjacent projects are Hollywood starring Tony nominee Jeremy Pope, movie adaptations of The Boys in the Band and The Prom, and a 10-part limited series adaptation of A Chorus Line.
Platt’s Radio City Music Hall concert will stream on Netflix, directed by Alex Timbers (Moulin Rouge! The Musical, Beetlejuice).
