{"id":285737,"date":"2020-01-02T05:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-01-02T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/b1106210"},"modified":"2020-01-02T05:00:00","modified_gmt":"2020-01-02T12:00:00","slug":"the-history-of-beanie-feldstein-and-ben-platts-friendship-from-bat-mitzvahs-to-broadway-and-beyond","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kidn\/music-news\/the-history-of-beanie-feldstein-and-ben-platts-friendship-from-bat-mitzvahs-to-broadway-and-beyond\/","title":{"rendered":"The History of Beanie Feldstein and Ben Platt’s Friendship, From Bat Mitzvahs to Broadway and Beyond"},"content":{"rendered":"
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For the first time, Beanie Feldstein<\/strong> and Ben Platt<\/strong> are both headed to the Golden Globes<\/a> this weekend as nominees<\/a>.<\/p>\n

And that’s exciting and all, but… will <\/em>it compare to prom night?!<\/p>\n

That’s right, the devoted best friends go that far back, all the way to high school in the San Fernando Valley. (Though, since they’re both 26, their birthdays within a few months of each other, it’s not all that<\/em> far back.)<\/p>\n

“What a ridiculously surreal, special morning,” Feldstein tweeted last month<\/a> in response to her nomination for Best Actress in a Motion Picture, Musical or Comedy, for the super-badass Booksmart.<\/em> “Thank you to the HFPA for this beautiful nomination amongst the most extraordinary women. To get to be there with my partner on this journey – [co-star] @KaitlynDever, my life partner – @BenSPLATT, and my Lady Bird is too much for my heart.”<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n

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As for Ben Splatt, er, Platt, nominated for Best Actor in a TV Series, Musical or Comedy for his role as a scarily ambitious teen with designs on the presidency in Ryan Murphy<\/a><\/strong>‘s acerbic satire The Politician<\/em>, he tweeted<\/a>, “Thank you so very much to the HFPA for recognizing our @the_Politician family and for making both of these goober prom dates @goldenglobes nominees!”<\/p>\n

The goober prom date being Feldstein.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n

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OK, Sunday is probably gonna be a pretty great night\u2014not least because, if anyone knows how to party, it’s the musical-theater kids.<\/p>\n

Feldstein and Platt, graduates of the private Harvard-Westlake School in Sherman Oaks, Calif., both started nourishing their love of performing at an early age. In fact, they first bonded over their mutual love of theater at a Bat Mitzvah in the mid’00s (and both had respective theater-themed Bar and Bat Mitzvahs, of course<\/em>).<\/p>\n

“Our friend was like, ‘You should meet each other, you both love theater,'” Platt told BuzzFeed<\/a> last year, “so we sat down and started talking about theater…We missed the entire Bat Mitzvah. Our mutual friend is still upset to this day.”<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Beanie<\/p>\n

Marion Curtis\/StarPix for NETFLIX\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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“This was before cell phones,” Feldstein explained on<\/a> Late Night With Seth Meyers<\/em>. “We didn’t have any way to stay in touch.”<\/p>\n

Luckily, they ended up at the same high school, and Feldstein remembers the first time she saw Platt, “wearing that shirt with a recycling symbol on it, I’ll never forget,” she told Vanity Fair<\/em><\/a> in 2017. “And light gray Urban Outfitters tight jeans,” Platt added.<\/p>\n

Feldstein told Meyers, “We instantly became best friends\u2014and, sort of like the way that he knew we were best friends was the second week of school.”<\/p>\n

What happened was, she continued, Platt had just got his braces off, so he texted her\u2014and she left her class right then to see his teeth. “And I’m such a good-goody and I love school,” Feldstein added, “so he was like, ‘I must mean a lot to you.'”<\/p>\n

And they’ve meant a lot to each other ever since. To put it mildly.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n

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Both a couple of child actors, Beanie (who happens to be Jonah Hill<\/a><\/strong>‘s little sister) and Ben (father Marc Platt<\/strong> is a veteran producer whose credits include La La Land<\/em>) also bonded over balancing school with their side gigs in showbiz.<\/p>\n

The first show Platt ever saw on Broadway was Thoroughly Modern Millie<\/em> when he was about 9, and watching it, he just knew he had found his calling. In fact, he would make his professional debut in a production of The Music Man <\/em>in 2002 at the Hollywood Bowl. His first movie role was “Boy Scout #1” in Red Riding Hood<\/em>, a 2006 film we didn’t know existed but which stars Henry Cavill<\/a><\/strong> as the hunter who saves the day and Joey Fatone<\/a><\/strong> as the wolf.<\/p>\n

Still, Platt later admitted he was disappointed not to be cast as Tevye in a high school school production of Fiddler on the Roof<\/em>, but ultimately appreciated playing Motel the tailor. <\/p>\n

“It was a good lesson in casting,” he told BuzzFeed.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Beanie<\/p>\n

Broadway World\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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Feldstein’s professional acting debut also came in 2002, on an episode of the ABC sitcom My Wife and Kids<\/em>. But like Platt, she too knew early on that her heart belonged to Broadway.<\/p>\n

“I did my first little kids musical, The Sound of Music<\/em>, at 5, in a jungle gym, essentially,” Feldstein told Vogue <\/em>in 2017<\/a>. “I was a made-up Von Trapp child, Ingrid Von Trapp. The way other kids would watch The Little Mermaid<\/em> or Sesame Street<\/em>, I would watch Fiddler on the Roof<\/em>.”<\/p>\n

Naturally, she and Platt co-starred in a school production of Our Town<\/em> and car singalongs were the norm.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n

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“On his 16th birthday, I gave him monogrammed cuff links,” Feldstein emotionally recalled to Vogue<\/em>. “I actually cut out construction paper and, with a Magic Marker, wrote, ‘For when you win your first Tony.’ I think back to us riding to school together singing Gypsy<\/em> in the car, or Next to Normal<\/em>…just being able to watch him, and for him to watch me, it’s been really emotional. It’s truly out of our wildest dreams.”<\/p>\n

They danced up a storm at that senior prom\u2014which Platt asked her to using lyrics from Funny Girl<\/em>. They went their separate ways geographically after graduation, but luckily cell phones were all the rage by then.<\/p>\n

“I think it was good because I think we always both knew that, as actors, we were going to be in different projects at different times, and be wherever we were,” Platt told Vanity Fair<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n

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Platt got into Columbia University but took a detour to Louisiana to shoot Pitch Perfect<\/em>. <\/em>He did enroll in the fall of 2012 but left after six weeks to join the Chicago production of The Book of Mormon<\/em>. Then, in 2014, he fatefully read for the role of a teenager with social anxiety who gets caught up in a lie that takes on a social media-fueled life of its own in the thoroughly modern musical Dear Evan Hanson<\/em>.<\/p>\n

It premiered in 2016 and was nothing short of a Broadway phenomenon.<\/p>\n

“Ben is truly the mayor of the Upper West Side,” Feldstein told Vanity Fair<\/em>. “The Upper West Side is the key Broadway demo, and when we walk to dinner in the Upper West Side, they’re like, ‘BEN!’ It’s just like these Jewish mothers, I love it.”<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n

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Feldstein, meanwhile, graduated from Wesleyan University (Lin-Manuel Miranda<\/a><\/strong>‘s alma mater) in Connecticut with a degree in sociology and attended the famed New York theater camp Stagedoor Manor. But she too balanced her stage ambitions with screen work, making her film debut in 2016’s Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising <\/em>and then landing a solid supporting role in Greta Gerwig<\/strong>‘s Lady Bird<\/em>, playing the best friend of Saoirse Ronan<\/a><\/strong>‘s title character.<\/p>\n

Feldstein also bonded with Lady Bird<\/em> actor Lucas Hedges<\/strong>, a Golden Globe nominee last year for Boy Erased<\/em>, and he has since become a member of the Ben-and-Beanie circle of friends. “Sweet, sweet Lucas Hedges, who we both love so much,” she shared with Vanity Fair<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The erstwhile eighth Von Trapp child made her<\/em> Broadway debut in 2017, playing Minnie Fay in Hello, Dolly!<\/em> alongside Bette Midler<\/a><\/strong>, basically a patron saint of musical theater. When her run ended in 2018, Feldstein was cast in Olivia Wilde<\/a><\/strong>‘s directorial debut, Booksmart<\/em>, about two bookish best friends who decide to pack in all the fun they didn’t have for four years on the eve of high school graduation.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Beanie<\/p>\n

F Duhamel\/Annapurna\/MGM\/Kobal\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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Another one of Feldstein’s besties, Molly Gordon<\/strong>, played her nemesis in the film, and after living with her onscreen BFF Kaitlyn Dever<\/strong> for 10 weeks (Wilde thought it would help their bond feel more authentic\u2014which is did), they ended up super close, too.<\/p>\n

Dever is a nominee for Best Actress in a Limited-Series or TV Movie for the heartbreaking true-crime drama Unbelievable<\/em> and Feldstein will also be reuniting with Lady Bird <\/em>co-star Saoirse Ronan, a nominee for Best Actress in a Motion Picture, Drama, for Little Women<\/em>.<\/p>\n

“It’s just completely surreal, it feels like a morning out of my wildest dreams,” Feldstein told The Wrap after the nominations were announced. “I get to be there with my closest, truest friends.”<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Beanie<\/p>\n

Willy Sanjuan\/Invision\/AP\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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All the while, especially when Feldstein finally ended up in New York, she and Platt remained each other’s nearest and dearest, both singing their hearts out whenever possible; staying active in causes important to them, including LGBTQ rights; and being each other’s go-to date for premieres.<\/p>\n

When their demanding Broadway schedules overlapped for a time, they described their lives to Vanity Fair<\/em> as “lunch, shopping, [and then] we just sit and watch TV like this,” curled up together, “usually half asleep.”<\/p>\n

“It’s weird that we’re doing an interview together,” Platt told the magazine. “But the individual thing, the way that it’s worked out time-wise has been…that’s what’s the most surreal, because each thing has happened one after the other. We can kind of take them in one at a time; it’s been really helpful. I feel better since we get to go through it together.”<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n

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Feldstein chimed in, “It really is not to be believed. I can imagine us in high school if we read about a best-friend duo that was on Broadway. We’d be like, ‘We’re obsessed with them!’ We would watch every Broadway.com interview they did.”<\/p>\n

It only made cosmic sense that Beanie was at Ben’s apartment in New York, along with his mom and a few other friends, when he found out he had been nominated for the Tony for Best Actor in a Musical for Dear Evan Hansen<\/em>, and she was at the Tonys in June 2017 to see him win and then helped celebrate afterward with some drunk karaoke.<\/p>\n

“I remember when he won the Tony,” Feldstein gushed to Extra<\/em><\/a>, “and I looked around and everyone’s looking at him like I have always looked at him.”<\/p>\n

And yes, Platt wore the cuff links she gave him in high school that night.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n

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Ben, in turn, was by Beanie’s side when Booksmart <\/em>premiered last spring at Austin’s SXSW Festival, including while she was getting ready for her big night.<\/p>\n

Asked if she and Platt\u2014who also just released his debut album, Sing to Me Instead<\/em>\u2014used to get up to shenanigans akin to what Molly and Amy get up to in the movie, Feldstein told Extra<\/em> at the premiere, “I wouldn’t say we’re a rowdy type. We’re more of, like, a pajamas-and-Thai-food type.”<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Beanie<\/p>\n

Gregory Pace\/Shutterstock <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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They’re also, incidentally, a Dorothy-and-Tin Man type, the pair going all out on Oct. 31 for Bette Midler’s Hulaween Charity Gala, with a Hollywood golden-age theme. The night included a performance with the Divine Miss M herself, no big deal.<\/p>\n

It had been years, however, since they had formally performed together when they did so last August for A Night of Giving, Friendship and Music<\/a>, put on by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association.<\/p>\n

“We love supporting each other but we’ve never really gotten to sing together since we were 17, so we’re really excited to reunite,” Feldstein told the HFPA<\/a>, beaming at Platt. “And to do it for a wonderful cause,” he added, “philanthropy is the cherry on top.”<\/p>\n

They performed a mash-up of “Happy Days Are Here Again” and “Get Happy,” in honor of the only time Barbra Streisand<\/a><\/strong> and Judy Garland<\/a><\/strong> ever sang together\u2014a video Ben and Beanie always loved watching. “Naturally, we are the heirs to the Judy Garland-Barbra Streisand crown,” Platt joked.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Beanie<\/p>\n

Rob Latour\/Variety\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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And less than a decade after prom night, here they are now, both Golden Globe-nominated actors, Broadway veterans\u2014and, at long last, movie co-stars.<\/p>\n

Feldstein and Platt are busy filming the mightily ambitious-sounding big-screen adaptation of Stephen Sondheim<\/strong>‘s legendarily tricky musical Merrily We Roll Along<\/em>\u2014which is being shot by Richard Linklater<\/strong> over the course of 18 years.<\/p>\n

Well, Linklater proved he could handle the concept with Boyhood<\/em>, and Platt and Feldstein were probably going to be hanging out a lot during that time anyway<\/em>, so…<\/p>\n

At least they’re going to be having a ball no matter what. Happy days are here, yet again.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n

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Watch our Golden Globes: E!’s Inside Guide<\/i> special this Thursday at 11 p.m. for a Globes preview. And don’t miss E!’s Live From the Red Carpet<\/i> 2020 Golden Globes coverage Sunday, Jan. 5 starting at 4 p.m. ET\/1 p.m. PT followed by the Globes ceremony on NBC at 8 p.m. ET\/5 p.m. PT!<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

via:: E! Online<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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