Ansel Elgort

**Ansel Elgort,**born March 14, 1994, is an American actor. He portrayed Theodore Decker in the *Goldfinch*. He is known for his roles in The Fault in Our Stars, Baby Driver, Divergent, and more.

## Biography

Ansel Elgort was born in Manhattan, New York. His parents are Arthur Elgort, and Grethe Barrett Holby. His father is of Russian Jewish descent, and his mother is of Norwegian, English, and German ancestry. His maternal grandmother, Aase-Grethe, was in the Norwegian resistance during World War II, and saved Norwegian Jewish children by moving them into neutral Sweden. He is named after photographer Ansel Adams.

Ansel has two older siblings, Warren, a film editor, and Sophie, a photographer. At the age of nine, his mother took him to try out for School of American Ballet. He attended The Professional Performing Arts School, Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School and Stagedoor Manor summer camp. Elgort started taking acting classes at the age of twelve and at LaGuardia, Elgort performed in a rendition of *Hairspray* with Kyle Jean-Baptiste and starred in his school's productions of *Guys and Dolls*.

His acting career began through professional stage acting, in *Regrets*, by Matt Charman. His film debut was a secondary role in the 2013 remake of *Carrie*. His first highly publicized role was in *Divergent* as Caleb Prior, the brother of Beatrice Prior. The film was released on March 21, 2014.

After the filming of *Divergent* was completed, it was announced that he would play Augustus Waters in the film adaptation of John Green's novel *The Fault in Our Stars*. The film followed the story of Hazel, a teenage cancer patient, who is forced by her parents to attend a support group, where she subsequently meets and falls in love with Waters, an ex-basketball player. The film was released on June 6, 2014.

In 2014, Elgort was named one of the best actors under twenty years of age. He reprised his role, Caleb Prior, in *The Divergent Series: Insurgent*, the second film of the book series *Divergent*, which was released March 20, 2015, and in the third film, *The Divergent Series: Allegiant*, which was released on March 18, 2016.

In 2016, Elgort was on a shortlist of actors for the role of Han Solo in *Solo: A Star Wars Story.* In 2017, Elgort played the title role in the action film *Baby Driver*. The film received positive reviews and performed well at the box office. He received a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy nomination for it. The box office received for the movie was 227 million USD.

### **Music**

Under the name Ansølo, Elgort created a SoundCloud account to publish electronic dance music, and he has remixed songs such as "Born to Die" by Lana del Rey. In a livestream in February 2014 he stated he had signed a record deal with Tom Staar's new label Staar Traxx and Steve Angello Size Records.

His first record "Unite" was released on April 21, 2014, on Beatport, and May 5, 2014, on iTunes. His second record, "Totem", was released July 21, 2014, on Beatport and iTunes. His single "To Life" was released in September 2015.

He played at the Electric Zoo Festival main stage in 2014, the Ultra Music Festival main stage in March 2015, played in a red-light dance music event in Amsterdam in 2014, opened some The Chainsmokers shows, a NERVO show, and some others shows with his friends. He played his first headline show on his 21st birthday on Pacha NYC.

In 2015, he signed a record deal with Island/Universal Records, and released his first single titled "Home Alone" in July 2016.

On February 3, 2017, he released a single called "Thief" under the name Ansel Elgort. The music video featured his girlfriend Violetta Komyshan, a ballet dancer.

He was featured on rapper Logic's third studio album, *Everybody*, released on May 5, 2017, on a song titled "Killing Spree".

On January 11, 2018, he released a single called "Supernova".