Ansel Elgort: I’m still the same guy

LOS ANGELES — As of last count, he has more than 2.5 million followers on his Twitter and 4.2 million on his Instagram account, thanks no doubt to Divergent and his breakthrough performance as a cancer patient in The Fault in Our Stars, each grossing more than $300M worldwide.

Already (maybe it’s too early to tell), Ansel Elgort predicted to be a Marlon Brando in the making by Jason Reitman, director of Men, Women & Children (with Adam Sandler), who was quoted by Details magazine as saying, “Ansel looks and feels like a young Brando.”

Besides Men, Elgort is also in the cast of Insurgent, the second installment in the best-selling trilogy (coming soon: Allegiant) by Veronica Roth, produced (like Divergent) by Lionsgate and is released locally by Pioneer Films starting today, in which he reprises his Divergent role as Caleb Prior, brother of Beatrice “Tris” Prior played by Shailene Woodley who was Elgort’s fellow cancer patient and lover in Fault.

Throughout his heady journey kicked off by the success of his two previous movies, Elgort has remained grounded and level-headed, not letting himself be swayed by the scream of hysterical fans everywhere he goes.

“Everything is different and sometimes it feels somewhat weird,” Elgort admitted during Funfare’s interview with him at Four Seasons for the Insurgent media junket (also attended by Woodley and Theo James, both recently featured in The STAR, co-star Miles Teller and new cast member Octavia Spencer). “Yes, there’s a lot of screaming fans but most of the time, it all feels the same. You know, I don’t like a different layer. I’m still the same guy and, after this interview, I still want to go to places where I used to go.”

Perhaps he’s used to the being, well, showbiz. The son of fashion photographer Arthur Elgort and opera director Grethe Barrett Holby, Ansel as a kid took ballet, acting and voice lessons. He graduated from La Guardia High School of the Performing Arts and his first professional acting job was in Manhattan Theater Club’s production of Matt Charman’s play Regrets. He found his love for performing through dance. As a child, Elgort performed both in The Nutcracker and Swan Lake at Lincoln Center in New York City where he resides up to now.

“I like ballet dancers a lot,” Elgort confessed during an interview with The STAR L.A. correspondent Raymond Lo for Fault last year, adding (much to the titillation of his girl fans), “I like someone who is very passionate about something. Intelligent is good; it helps because if you’re going to be best friends with someone, it’s nice if she’s intelligent so you can talk about anything. But the most important thing is she must have a passion because I am obsessed with passion. She may not share the same passion as mine but having a passion just for anything is good enough.”

I guess his ideal girl must also have a sense of humor, something which Elgort showed during the interview.

Asked how much more (or much less) privacy he has left, he smiled.

“I have privacy when I close the door of my house, you know what I mean? So I feel like I can still remain myself, the real me.”

As Caleb Prior in both Divergent and Insurgent, Elgort is the submissive type in contrast to Woodley/Tris who is a Divergent (meaning she possesses most of the characteristics of the other factions in a dystopian Chicago…the selfless Abnegation, the honest Candor, the friendly Amity, the brave Dauntless and the intelligent Erudite).

“You know, I think that I will always find similarities with whatever character I am playing and exaggerate them,” said Elgort. “So I’ll take some qualities from myself and use them to create the other guy. I’m not really like Caleb, we’re very different. However, there’s a part of me that I can use to build him, for sure.”

And how did he feel being siblings with Woodley again after they played lovers in Fault?

“I think it just sort of happens naturally. You know, you put on the costume when you get on set and you are in a totally different world and a totally different vibe. If I’m on screen, I don’t think of myself as Ansel Elgort and herself as Shailene Woodley, we are what our characters are.”

So how much more daring can he be for a role?

“I can be as daring as I can,” he was certain. “I have a long way to go. I’m turning only 21. Hopefully, I want to go on  acting until I am 80.”

And oh yes, one of these days, Elgort said that he would love to play any of the roles that Marlon Brando did.

“Maybe something like On The Waterfront,” he stressed. “Besides Brando, I admire Paul Newman. Among the younger generation, I love Christian Bale and Tom Hardy whom I just saw in Batman. Hopefully, I can be one of them.”

Ai-Ai’s current status: Floating?

Confirmed: Ai-Ai delas Alas’ contract with Kapamilya officially expired last Feb. 10 but she had to put one more month as “payment” for…absences? Since she didn’t renew her contract upon its final expiration on March 10, Ai-Ai is now a freelancer.

“My current status is ‘floating’,” said Ai-Ai, “so I am on Cloud 9.”

Just as she is as far as her love life is concerned. Still going stronger every day.

She and her boyfriend Gerald Sibayan have just come back from the US where Ai-Ai received her greencard. It was celebrity immigration lawyer Jemela Nettles who processed Ai-Ai’s papers.

Yes, Ai-Ai did buy a house in California preparatory to eventually migrating there. Her children Sophia and Nicolo are based in California with their father Miguel Vera.

Meanwhile, could it be true that Ai-Ai is going back to being Kapuso? There are reports that she’s doing a show with Regine Velasquez-Alcasid and another one to be produced by TAPE, Inc. which will take the slot to be vacated by Vampire ang Daddy Ko.

Ai-Ai is mum about those projects.

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