Entertainment

Ansel Elgort's Next Role Is The Perfect Move

by Maitri Suhas

Ansel Elgort really does seem like a sweet kid with an Old Soul, and I am normally hesitant to fawn over actors. But he's just so damn cute! Regardless of his earnestness, though, Ansel Elgort's next role will have him starring in a much darker, edgier project: He'll be starring in Edgar Wright's Baby Driver, playing a — as the title suggests — getaway driver. His character is "coerced into working for a crime boss, [and] he must face the music when a doomed heist threatens his life, love and freedom." Damn — The Fault In Our Stars was dark, yes, but not gritty dark like Baby Driver is sure to be (don't see how you could have a movie with a crime boss be anything but gory). Fear not, though: I have faith that Elgort will do justice to the role of the driver in Baby Driver.

Dark, gritty roles may not seem like Elgort's forte, but he does have experience with them: Even though The Fault In Our Stars and the Divergent series (both of which he stars in with friend Shailene Woodley) are what really put him on the map, Elgort also played a major role in a little film called Carrie: In the 2013 adaptation of the Stephen King novel of the same name (it starred Chloe Grace-Moretz as Carrie White and Julianne Moore as her crazed mother), Elgort played Tommy Ross, the popular guy that ends up asking Carrie to prom only to get doused in that pig's blood right along with her. That role alone should be proof enough that Elgort will kill it in Baby Driver.

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Additionally, he's also booking other more complicated projects, proving that even though he's relatively new to the industry, he's already proving himself to have a wide range: Last summer, Deadline reported that Elgort is slated to play the titular role in Van Cliburn, as the young "pianist in his formative years when, at age 23 in 1958, he emerged from out of nowhere to win the Tchaikovsky International Piano Competition in Moscow." If he can play a figure caught in the tensions of the Cold War, I'm pretty sure that Elgort can do well with a getaway driver.

As much as he owes the beginning of his career to young adult books, it seems like Elgort is already going darker with his future roles.