Entertainment Movies Musical Movies Dear Evan Hansen Movie Adaptation Casts Amandla Stenberg in Key Role Amandla Stenberg's past credits include The Hate U Give and Everything, Everything By Ally Mauch Published on August 18, 2020 11:22AM EDT Amandla Stenberg. Photo: Neilson Barnard/Getty Images Amandla Stenberg has been cast in the upcoming Dear Evan Hansen movie, based on the Tony Award-winning musical. The 21-year-old actress will be featured in a role that has been adapted and expanded for the film, according to Variety. She will also perform a new original song in the movie, which she is writing alongside Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, the lyricists who wrote the music for the Broadway show as well as 2016’s La La Land. Dear Evan Hansen tells the story of a socially anxious high school student, paralyzed by the hyper-connectivity of social media and forced to watch the world from the outside looking in. Trying to improve his self-image, Evan writes himself a letter that is mistaken for a classmate’s suicide note — and rides that error to popularity. Ben Platt performing in Dear Evan Hansen. Matthew Murphy Ben Platt Wants to Make a Dear Evan Hansen Movie: 'I'll Shave, I'll Get Scrawny' Stenberg, whose recent projects include starring in The Hate U Give and Everything, Everything, will take on the role of Alana Beck, played by Kristolyn Lloyd in the Broadway show's original cast. Ben Platt starred as Evan Hansen in the original Broadway run, earning him the Tony Award for lead actor in a musical in 2017. Platt will likely reprise his role for the film adaptation, with actress Kaitlyn Dever tapped to play Zoe, Evan's love interest and the younger sister of his late classmate, Variety previously reported. RELATED VIDEO: Ben Platt on Returning to 'Dear Evan Hansen' If It Becomes a Film: 'I'd Love to Go Back' Speaking to PEOPLE Now earlier this year, Platt, 26, said he “would love to go back” to his role as Evan for the movie, adding that he hopes the Dear Evan Hansen adaptation will be a “new thing.” “A lot of times when you’re taking something from stage to screen there can be almost too much faithfulness to the stage piece out of respect for fans or for people that love the material,” he said in March. “What’s important for people to understand is the film is such a different piece. I think not being afraid to reinvent it for the screen would be the thing that would make or break it.”