Movies

Rising star Ansel Elgort already carving a path to fame

Ansel Elgort was at the Austin airport in December when he got his first taste of stardom. “Someone recognized me and it caused a big scene and they started crying and yelling and grabbing me,” says the 20-year-old co-star of “Divergent,” out Friday.

“So that was kind of weird,” he says.

Ansel Elgort attends the Vogue 2013 Fashion Fund Finalists Celebration.Monica Schipper/FilmMagic

Weird is about to be Elgort’s new normal.

Not only does he play Shailene Woodley’s brother in the sci-fi flick, but he’s her lover in “The Fault in Our Stars,” out in June.

And he just wrapped “Men, Women & Children,” with Jennifer Garner and Adam Sandler.

Although Elgort is new on the scene — his first film role was in last year’s “Carrie” — the 6-foot-4 actor is making a name for himself.

And in the modern-day test of true stardom, his fans have already made a name for themselves.

“They call themselves ‘Anselites,’ ” says Elgort, who boasts the requisite teenhearthrob six-pack abs and James Dean waves.

To the chagrin of those Anselites, Elgort has a girlfriend, dancer Violetta Komyshan, his high-school sweetheart.

“It’s important to me to be with someone who I really trust, and if it’s someone I knew before all of this, that’s nice,” he says.

Elgort would like to keep some privacy to go with his newfound fame. “It goes back to what Kate Winslet [his “Divergent” co-star] told me: ‘There’s a part of your life that needs to be your own.’ I don’t know why who I’m in love with needs to be public knowledge,” says Elgort.

Someone who can relate is Woodley, who famously eschews cellphones.

Elgort with his “The Fault In Our Stars” co-star Shailene Woodley. The two also appear together in “Divergent.”James Bridge/Twentieth Century Fox

“It’s tough to get in touch with her. But that’s how she lives,” says Elgort. “We’re friends, but … I can’t text her and say, ‘What’s up?’ If I want to meet up with her, I don’t know how to get in touch with her. But that’s her way right now with staying disconnected with the world.”

If Woodley wants to find Elgort, she can head to Williamsburg, where the actor now lives.

It’s a bit of a trek from his Upper West Side childhood home, where Elgort resided with his father (Vogue photographer Arthur Elgort), mother (opera director Grethe Barrett Holby) and two siblings.

Elgort basically had the arts bred into him. He’s a trained ballet and tap dancer, who was in “The Nutcracker” at age 9, and even landed a starring off-Broadway role in “Regrets,” alongside Alexis Bledel of “Gilmore Girls,” while still enrolled in the famed La Guardia high school.

He’s also a professional DJ (he goes by Ansolo; his first record drops April 16).

“You just have to be grateful and embrace [success],” he says.

But Elgort’s still wary of fame: “You get a million messages from people you’ve never met, and people you haven’t talked to in years saying, ‘Hey man, let’s hang out and catch up,’ and I’m like, ‘I don’t know you, nor do I want to catch up with you.’ You have to be out of that bubble a little bit.”