Get ready, guys, because Amandla Stenberg will be joining Ben Platt and Kaitlyn Dever in the upcoming film adaptation of the Broadway musical Dear Evan Hansen. Yep, on Monday, August 17, The Hollywood Reporter announced that The Hate U Give star would take on the newly expanded role of Alana for the new movie.
According to the publication, Alana is “a high school senior whose cheery facade and social-media savvy mask a deeper loneliness and isolation, and whose response to the death of a classmate ignites a movement.” Get this, you guys — Amandla is also set to sing a brand new song for the film!
For those who missed it, in June, Deadline reported that Universal was turning the fan-favorite Broadway play into a movie starring the Booksmart actress and Pitch Perfect alum. As fans know, Ben starred as the title character on stage for two years, even winning a Tony Award for his performance, so the fact that he’s going to reprise the role for the movie is seriously the best news ever. Kaitlyn, who fans may recognize from Men, Women & Children, Last Man Standing and Unbelievable, will play Zoe Murphy, the sister of the boy who passed away.
The publication also said that Stephen Chbosky (author of The Perks of Being a Wallflower) is reportedly directing the upcoming flick, with Marc Platt and Adam Siegel set to produce it. The guys who wrote the music for the play — Benj Pasek and Justin Paul — are going to handle the soundtrack to the movie, while Steve Levenson, who wrote the book for the stage musical, is writing the script.
Dear Evan Hansen tells the story of a young man with a social anxiety disorder, who pretends he was close to a deceased student in an attempt to become closer to the boy’s family. Following Ben’s Broadway performance, Jordan Fisher took over the role of Evan — that is, until Broadway was shut down due to the coronavirus pandemic.
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