Ben Platt’s The Politician character was inspired by a Parkland school shooting survivor

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Platt, who performed at the March For Our Lives rally in Washington last year, leads The Politician cast in the role of Payton, an overly-ambitious high-school student with dreams of becoming President of the United States.

Speaking on Monday night (16th September), he said that in order to prepare for the part he "watched a lot of speeches of people I consider to be very galvanising and... [have] mastered the curation of their identity".

"I think Payton is really brilliant at having something feel organic and feel authentic and have it be entirely fabricated. And so I think not just politicians, but people in the entertainment business, people whose job it is to sort of sell themselves, I was very inspired by.

"Additionally I found a lot of inspiration in this young man, in Cameron Kasky, who is one of the Parkland school shooting survivors, who became a really important voice in the gun control conversation in America," the Tony-winning actor continued. "Purely — he’s far more a kind and empathetic person than Payton, [but a] very intelligent, eloquent 18-year-old kid who is involved in a major political conversation, and so to see a person that young and charismatic hold themselves that well in that kind of public eye and talking about something that politically charged was a really amazing jumping-off point for the character."

Directed and written by Murphy, the series co-stars Oscar winners Jessica Lange and Gwyneth Paltrow, and has already been commissioned for a second series.

The Politician is released on 27th September on Netflix