Ansel Elgort will feature in July’s upcoming Modern Luxury: Beach Magazine for the Summer, July 2015 Issue. Just recently, new photos of the scans from his previous issue for Beach where released with this issue.
The interview with Elgort, talks about his life choices and his family life. His very relaxent and famous by blood family, from living in the Upper East side of New York City, to the SouthEast part of the Hamptons. Read more about his interview down below:
Like most overnight successes, Ansel Elgort’s seemingly warp-speed rise to matinee idol fame came after years of blood, sweat and, in his case, tap. “When he was younger he would tap dance all around the house,” recalls his father, iconic fashion photographer Arthur Elgort, who celebrated his 75th birthday surrounded by family and friends in Southampton last month, and whose images have filled the pages of Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar throughout Ansel’s entire life. “He had a small portable floor that rolled up. Not only was he tapping all around the house, he would take his little floor down to the parking garage and tap!”
That was just the first step for the youngest of the three Elgort offspring, reared on Manhattan’s Upper East Side with summers spent in Southampton. Ansel, named after the photographer Ansel Adams, began studying with the New York City Ballet when he was just 10 years old. His mother, opera director Grethe Barrett Holby, secured an audition for him when the show-tune-loving youngster began to dream big about Broadway. A role in The Nutcracker crystalized his vision for the future: Yes, he was born to perform.
Today, the lanky 6-foot-4, 21-year-old with the pouty lips and disarmingly handsome looks is making good on his childhood promise. His big-screen debut as the good-natured high school heartthrob in the 2013 remake of Carrie was followed with the one-two punch of Divergent and the film adaptation of the tear-jerking drama about teens with cancer, The Fault in Our Stars, in 2014. With Ansel’s status as the dreamboat du jour firmly cemented, Hollywood players are banking on his talent.
In his next film, Sony Pictures’ November Criminals, out spring 2016, Ansel stars opposite Chloë Grace Moretz, as the two investigate a friend’s murder in the underbelly of Washington, D.C. His performance in the film, which wrapped this spring in Providence, R.I., only confirmed what director Sacha Gervasi saw in his earlier roles. “He’s an incredible raw talent. I was astonished at the depth and scope of his acting ability. He’s the real deal,” says Gervasi, echoing the sentiments of Ansel’s previous directors who’ve likened him to a young Marlon Brando, Brad Pitt and Ryan Gosling. “He’s a very visceral, pure actor, reminiscent of the great movie stars of the past. It’s up to Ansel what he wants to do, but creatively, the future is unlimited for him. He can do anything.”
SHOOTING STAR Ansel Elgort is not only a talented actor but a trained dancer—he began studying with the New York City Ballet at just 10 years old.
Beyond acting, Ansel is also passionate about his side career as an electronic dance music artist. He’s been making progressive house music under the DJ moniker Ansolo (his childhood nickname) since well before his movie career ignited. His father even joined him for a late-night rave at New York hot spot Pacha, when Ansel deejayed the club on his 21st birthday this past March, the same month he made his debut at the Ultra Music Festival in Miami.
When not in front of the camera or behind the decks, Ansel maintains a fairly low-key life, sharing an apartment with a DJ buddy in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and spending quality time with his family on the East End, where the Elgort clan has been summering since he was a young boy. “My father bought a house on Meadow Lane in Southampton in the early ’80s, when Meadow Lane was a dirt road,” he says. “We’ve pretty much spent every summer of my life out there, or at least every August.”
Forget the black-tie galas and summer social circuit: It’s all about relaxing out here for Ansel. “I like going to the beach and kayaking in the bay. I also go to Tate’s in the morning for coffee and a muffin, and we like to go to Suki Zuki in Water Mill. But I feel like the Hamptons is a good place to stay at home,” he says. “The whole family can be together. It’s not about going out as much; I prefer to stay home and chill.”
His dad reports that his youngest son has another hidden talent: “Ansel is a great cook. So most of the time we cook together at the house.” On nights when he’s not manning the kitchen, they may venture out to Sip’n Soda or Sant Ambroeus. But primarily they nest at home, enjoying time together as a family. “We like to relax. We enjoy our pool. We take lots of photos,” says Arthur.
Thanks to all of those years posing for his father, Ansel is a natural and still relishes the opportunity to turn it on for the camera. (He’s featured prominently in Prada’s spring 2015 ad campaign.) “I’ve been working with a lot of photographers—it’s nice for me because even though I love working with my dad, it gives me a sense of individuality,” he says. “I’m not just ‘Arthur’s son,’ I’m Ansel Elgort.”
He’s certainly made a name for himself in a very short amount of time. He’s already a bankable movie star, with just a handful of films under his belt. Of course, along with the success come the inevitable hang-ups of fame, hordes of screaming teenage girls and paparazzi stalkers among them. Gervasi says Ansel handles it in stride. “He’s very sanguine about it. He’s very smart. He understands what it is.” As his dad points out, “He’s been on the stage in front of people for a long time. He used to go to a summer camp in the Catskills called Stagedoor Manor. He’s used to all of this, which is why I think he hasn’t really changed.”
According to his dad, he’s always been “hammy”—and still is. His more than 5 million Instagram followers get a glimpse of that regularly. (Check out his unabashed glee for cherry snow cones in one adorably goofy recent Insta-video.) Not only is he game to give fans a glimpse of his daily life on social media, he’s also a charmer in person. “I’ve never seen someone be more thoughtful and kind toward his fans,” notes Gervasi, who witnessed swarms of youngsters clamoring for autographs and selfies with him during filming. “There were many fans on the set waiting to meet both him and Chloë. They both took photos with every single fan—on some days that amounted to several hundred who were waiting in the rain just to meet them.”
As for Ansel himself, the best part of the rapid fame is having an audience for his creative endeavors. “What’s changed is: ‘Oh, you can go to this restaurant,’ or ‘You can go to this nightclub,’ but I’m not really interested in that,” he told GQ earlier this year. “What’s interesting to me is the fact that creatively, I can do anything now and people will pay attention, and if I suck, hopefully they will stop paying attention very quickly—but if I’m good, then I have my foot in the door.”
That door, young sir, is already wide open.
Thank you to my good friend Elgort_News from Instagram for helping me out with the scan photos and the article issue!
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