Ben Platthopes his new showThe Politicianwill inspire young viewers to accept their authentic selves.
The actor, who stars as a sexually fluid teenager in the new Netflix series, opens up to PEOPLE about how important representation is on screen — and how far it has come.
But inThe Politician, his character’s sexuality is an assumed part of his identity, rather than a leading plotline in the show.
“Now to see a character that [their sexual preference] is an assumed part of their identity and it’s not the subject matter of the piece, that would have been I think even more affecting,” he adds. “Everyone is somewhere on the spectrum, and that’s part of the landscape. We don’t have to make that the subject of the piece.”
Courtesy of NETFLIX
In fact, many of the characters on the show are openly gay or sexually fluid.
“There’s not ‘the queer character,’ ” says Platt, 26. “It’s all over.”
“I think it’s immeasurable to know the impact that can have on a teenager who is coming into their own,” his costar Zoey Deutch also tells PEOPLE.
The Politicianfollows Payton (Platt), a rich teenager who has equipped himself with a blueprint to earn him success upon success and ultimately land him in the White House. First up: winning student-body president. But as the election proves to be more of a minefield than he expected, he begins to blur the lines of morality in order to achieve his goal.
Christopher Patey/Getty Images for Netflix
“Much like Payton, I’ve had a very superficial, exacting idea of exactly where I wanted to go, and a one-track mind and a drive and ambition for that one goal,” says Platt. “Payton has the one thing he knows he wants to do, but anything that veers from that, he kind of feels like he’s sort of getting a little bit on thin ice.”
The eight-episode first season ofThe Politicianis streaming on Netflix.
source: people.com
