When Ansel Elgort's name is announced at the MTV Movie Awards this Sunday, you'll be forgiven for thinking that our next alien overlord has just been introduced. But despite having the weirdest name of all time, The Fault in Our Stars star Ansel Elgort is very human — and about to be very, very famous. But who is he?
Let's get that silly name out of the way first. No, Elgort was not born on Mars. He was born in New York City in 1994, the son of photographer Arthur Elgort and opera director Grethe Barrett Holby. His mother is Norwegian and his father is of Russian Jewish descent, hence the winning combination of "Ansel" and "Elgort."
He's Got an Awesome Grandma
Elgort's grandmother saved Norwegian Jewish children during the Holocaust by shuttling across them across the border into Sweden. You wish your grandma was that cool.
He's Very Artsy
The 20-year-old Elgort has been involved in the arts all his life: he auditioned for the School of American Ballet when he was 9, he attended Stagedoor Manor summer camp during high school, and he started modeling when he was 15 for the likes of Teen Vogue .
He's a Calendar Hunk... Sort Of
His sister Sophie, an aspiring photographer like her father, shot a calendar of her brother called The 12 Months of Ansel that was sold as a charity event at his school.
He's a Broadway Babe
Elgort made his professional acting debut in the 2012 off-Broadway production of Matt Charman's Regrets, where he played a young man running away from a troubled marriage in 1950s Nevada. In his New York Times review of the play, Charles Isherwood described Elgort as "a baby-faced youngster with a pompadour and James Dean jeans."
He's Worked With A Gilmore Girl
Regrets also featured Alexis Bledel of Gilmore Girls fame.
He's Been in a Bloody Film
Elgort's first film role was in last year's remake of Carrie , where he played Tommy Ross, the nice jock who takes the titular telekinetic to the disastrous prom. He can currently be seen on the big screen in the YA smash Divergent as the super-smart brother of Shailene Woodley's Tris. And later this year, he'll star in yet another adaptation of a popular YA novel, The Fault In Our Stars , also starring Woodley. In the ickiest Hollywood pairing since Grey's Anatomy actress Chyler Leigh had to make out with her own brother in the 1997 film Kickboxing Academy , Elgort and Woodley will transition from playing siblings to googly-eyed love interests.
He's Going to Be Huge
Pseudo-incestuous romance aside, Elgort's role as cancer-stricken heartthrob Augustus Waters will likely catapult the young actor to global fame overnight. People everywhere have already fallen in love with the impulsively romantic Gus on paper, and the 6'4 Elgort should have little trouble making audiences swoon in their seats. He's already got his next project lined up ( Men, Women & Children by Juno director Jason Reitman), and — if Stars is as big of a hit as it seems poised to be — the sky could be the limit for this oddly monikered young hunk.
He's a DJ... With a Pseudonym
In his spare time between movies, Elgort also DJs and remixes popular songs like Lana Del Rey's Born To Die under the pseudonym Ansolo. Yes, as in "Han Solo" without the "H." He'll be releasing his first record, titled Unite, via Soundcloud on April 21.)
Watch Elgort and Woodley present together at the MTV Movie Awards this Sunday at 9 PM ET, and tune in to the pre-show for an exclusive clip from The Fault In Our Stars, out June 6.
