Hi everyone and thank you for tuning in to the 38th episode of Awards Chatter,

Hollywood Reporters Awards Podcast.

I'm the host Scott Feinberg,

and this episode is brought to you by Hulu's Little Fires Everywhere.

For your Emmy consideration,

an outstanding limited series and all other categories.

And now down to business.

My guest today is one of the most talented young performers in show business. He's an actor, singer, and songwriter, whose early credits include parts in the pitch perfect films and on Broadway in the Book of Mormon, but who's shot to stardom by originating the role of Evan Hansen, an anxious high school

student who gets trapped in a dark lie, in Dear Evan Hansen, both Off-Broadway from

March through May 2016 and on from November 2016 through November 2017,

winning an Obie for the former and a Tony for the latter. He was and remains the youngest ever solo winner of the best actor in a musical Tony.

And he also won a Grammy for the show's original cast album and a daytime Emmy for the company's performance of the song You Will Be Found on the Today Show.

In 2017 he was chosen as one of Time magazine's 100 most influential people in the world

and also signed with Atlantic Records,

which in March 2019 released his debut studio album, Sing to Me Instead.

In 2018 he signed on to star on Ryan Murphy's Netflix comedy series The politician

and has portrayed a politically ambitious young man on that show for two seasons

now the second of which dropped on June 19th. And in 2019, he gave a sold-out

concert at Radio City Music Hall that was made into a Netflix variety special.

Ben Platt, live from Radio City Music Hall, which dropped on the platform on May 20th of this year.

I'm talking, of course, about Ben Platt.

Over the course of our conversation, 26 year old and I discussed how dear

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