Ben Platt: ‘My parents always knew I was gay – I asked for a fog machine at 7’

‘As long as you turn your phone off during performances, we’re going to get along great’ - (Getty)

Ben Platt was technically 12 years old when he told his family he liked boys, but there may have been clues. “My parents tell me that they always knew,” he recalls now, surrounded by the tatty, primary school canteen chic of a south London rehearsal space. “I mean, I asked for a fog machine for my seventh birthday. And then – at eight or nine – I asked for clip-on microphones. I asked for my own trash cans because I loved Cats. I think I asked for a boombox.” The fog machine was for a very ambitious bedroom production of Cinderella that he was planning. “You know when she transforms from Cinderella-in-rags to Princess Cinderella? I really needed fog for that.”

Platt was always destined for theatrics – that his father is Marc Platt, the superstar producer behind everything from Wicked to La La Land, was merely the icing on the cake. He’s 32 now, arguably the biggest musical theatre star of his generation, and the winner of a Grammy, an Emmy and a Tony – that last one for his star-making role in the gloopy smash Dear Evan Hansen. It revolved around a lonely teenager whose absent-minded lie about a deceased classmate spirals out of control, and cemented Platt in the public consciousness as a socially anxious naif. And also, at least on stage, a big ol’ heterosexual.