“We were both very careful to make sure that the moments always felt like they were accenting the story,” he tells NME
Ben Platt has revealed to NME how the music for new Netflix series The Politician came together.
The new series, which focuses on a student election campaign, features a number of moments in which Platt sings classics by everyone from Joni Mitchell to Billy Joel.
Platt has now explained how the ideas came together in an interview with NME.
“‘River’ [the 1971 Joni Mitchell song he performs] was entirely Ryan [Murphy, creator] and Brad [Falchuk] and Ian [Brennan, showrunners]’s brainchild, as was ‘Assassins’,” he said, referring to the Steven Sondheim musical he acts out in one of the episodes.
“For the final song though,” Platt continued, “he gave me a number of choices of things he thought would apply. And the one I responded to the most was that Billy Joel song I thought was just I mean, that’s exactly what Peyton should be singing about. And I think it encapsulates him as a person really well.”
Expanding on the thought process behind the choices, Platt told NME: “I think that we were both very careful to make sure that the moments always felt like they were accenting the story, and that they felt organic to the action weren’t like us just trying to wedge in excuses for me to show up. Which is why I think it’s really tasteful how few of them there are, it makes them a lot more meaningful. And it was so fun to sing with Zoey [Deutch, co-star].”
NME recently spoke to The Politician‘s Zoey Deutch and Lucy Boynton to discuss the new Netflix show by creator Ryan Murphy. Watch the interview in full above.
