Features

Dear Evan Hansen musical movie: our dream casting

We think about who could take on leading roles in the ”Dear Evan Hansen” movie

Alex Wood

London

13 March 2020

Amandla Stenberg, Nick Offerman and Alex Lawther
© Left: Gage Skidmore from Peoria, AZ, United States of America / CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0), Centre: David Gordon, rig

Last week we sat down with the creators of Dear Evan Hansen who told us that they were slap bang in the middle of developing the movie version of the Tony Award-winning musical. With that in mind, we thought we'd given them our *completely hypothetical* dream casting choices for each of the lead roles!

Zoe Murphy – Florence Pugh

Have you ever heard Oscar nominee Florence Pugh sing? Turns out she had a YouTube channel before she got super famous and she does some pretty cracking covers. So she definitely has the singing chops to take on the role of Zoe, and we think her acting speaks for itself.

Larry Murphy – Nick Offerman

While he reached stratospheric levels of fame after playing Ron Swanson in Parks and Recreation, Nick Offerman has had a few stints on stage. He's also an adept singer, and with his gruff appearance and rustic macho vibes, we're sure he would bring a fascinating take to the role of Connor's overbearing father.

Connor Murphy – Alex Lawther

The actor, known for The End of the F**king World and The Imitation Game, is on a roll – he's about to appear in Wes Anderson's new film The French Dispatch for a start! So taking on the role of tortured teen Connor might be a nice bit of casting – he has a great West End presence too, having starred in The Jungle among other things.

Cynthia Murphy – Laura Dern

Laura Dern is having a big moment right now (Marriage Story, Little Women) and seeing her reunite with Pugh would be a nice treat. She could play tortured mother Cynthia with her eyes closed. Our other pick would be Megan Mullally, because seeing real-life husband/wife pair Mullaly and Offerman side by side on screen would be ace.

Heidi Hansen – Jada Pinkett Smith

Pinkett Smith has more experience producing Broadway shows rather than performing in them, but she's a ferocious actor and also a belter of a singer: we would love to see what she'd bring to the role of Heidi Hansen.

Jared Kleinman – Will Roland

Will Rowland — Will Roland
© TheaterMania

We are wholeheartedly committed to having one of the original cast members return for the film and, while Ben Platt may look *slightly* too old now to pass for a late teen, the forever youthful Will Rowland should definitely be back after playing the role of Jared on Broadway.

Alana Beck – Amandla Stenberg

She may have got her big break as Rue in The Hunger Games, but Stenberg has been going from strength to strength since then with a raft of high-profile films including Everything, Everything and The Hate U Give while being included in Time's list of Most Influential Teens in both 2015 and 2016. She's also a brilliant singer – take a look at the video above if you need any proof.

Evan Hansen – ???

And as for Evan…well…we don't want to know who they are! We hope the film goes the same route as the Jamie film and finds a relatively unknown performer, transforming them into an exciting new stasge and screen presence. We can't wait to see who takes charge.