Ansel Elgort’s road to THE FAULT IN OUR STARS fame required a lot of tears. He recently talked to The LA Times about his experience playing Augustus Waters, reading the book for the first time, and the most difficult yet rewarding scene in the film.
On reading the book:
“I was like, ‘I gotta read this … book,'” says Elgort, who, for all his artistic inclinations (he is a dancer and musician), isn’t much of a reader. “And I read it like a mad man. And I cried a lot, and it really hit me hard.”
On that pivotal scene:
“It was three hours of my life just losing it,” Elgort says, tearing up a bit at the memory. “I felt like a little baby again. I couldn’t stop crying, even in between takes. And it was so rewarding. I wasn’t sure it was going to happen and it just … happened. At that point, it wasn’t acting any more. It was just real.”
John Green on why Ansel was the best choice for Augustus:
“A lot of guys that came in knew how to play cool Gus,” Green says, “but very few of them knew how to be fragile while still being Augustus Waters.”