What It's Like To Be Really Famous, According To Ansel Elgort

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Jason Reitman’s Men, Women & Children , opening on the heels of Divergent and The Fault in Our Stars , caps off a year that has catapulted the young actor into a level of fame he is still trying to understand. Plus: An exclusive clip from Men, Women & Children .

Ansel Elgort in Men, Women & Children

Dale Robinette / Paramount Pictures

Stretched out on a Toronto hotel sofa with his head resting on a pillow and his long legs perched in gold-flecked Louis Vuitton high-tops on the coffee table in front of him, Ansel Elgort looked like a man who was working hard to seem completely at ease. He was in town for the 2014 Toronto International Film Festival, promoting the ensemble drama Men, Women & Children from co-writer-director Jason Reitman (Juno, Up in the Air). Elgort shot the film largely in January, before the release of Divergent (in which he has a supporting role) and The Fault in Our Stars (in which he's the romantic lead opposite Shailene Woodley). He then spent his summer shooting Insurgent, the second film in the Divergent franchise. With Men, Women & Children opening in theaters through October, the film has neatly bookended what has become a most auspicious year that has radically changed the 20-year-old actor's life.

"When I was doing this movie, my life was very normal," Elgort told BuzzFeed News. "No one knew who I was, and that was awesome. Nobody. Then Divergent came out, and still not very many people knew who I was. There was hype around Fault in Our Stars, so a few people [did]. Then Fault came out. You know, the movie's made, like, $300 million worldwide, more than Divergent . And then it was like everyone [knew me] — every young person in the world. I went to Paris. Every young person I passed on the street knew who I was. Which is nuts. Around the world."

Ansel Elgort at the Sept. 6 Gala Screening of Men, Women & Children during the 2014 Toronto International Film Festival

Jason Kempin / Getty Images

That kind of dramatic, youthful pronouncement appears to come naturally to the New York City native. Elgort's feature film debut was just last year, in the remake of Carrie starring Chloë Grace Moretz, but he doesn't appear terribly interested in adopting the classic self-effacing posture of many up-and-coming actors. "As someone who's an influencer…" is a typical way for him to start a sentence, and he did not evince any hesitation before declaring, "I've joked with myself [that] I want a post-mortem Academy Award nomination. The last movie I do better be fucking good."

In person, this unabashed ambition and playful enthusiasm — mixed with Elgort's penchant for speaking so quickly that his sentences sound like one giant word — could be quite charming. It could also be quite illuminating, especially since Elgort was so uncommonly unguarded about what it's been like experiencing such a sudden onrush of intense fame this year. Rather than shy away from it, Elgort's seemingly natural self-confidence had him brimming with excitement, even as he admitted that there are at least a few pitfalls to losing his anonymity.

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A Day In The Life Of Julie Plec

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The Vampire Diaries and The Originals executive producer gave BuzzFeed News unprecedented access to her office, her writers rooms, and her world. This is what life running a television show is actually like.

Justine Zwiebel for BuzzFeed/The CW; Frederick M. Brown / Getty Images

Julie Plec's black Porsche pulled into her assigned parking spot outside the unassuming office building that has housed The Vampire Diaries writing staff since 2009 (and, since 2013, the brains behind its spinoff, The Originals) almost mid-day on Sept. 2.

While Plec's employees — who number in the hundreds and are spread between Los Angeles and Atlanta, where both shows film — arrived at the office hours ago, the executive producer and showrunner has always done her best work late into the night.

"I'm a night owl; I could work until 6 in the morning without even thinking about it," Plec later told BuzzFeed News. "I tend to go to bed when I'm done working, so there's no way in hell I could turn around and come back into the office at 9 in the morning. I also build in enough time to make sure that I have a good night's sleep, which is a rule I made for myself late in Season 2. I just realized that if I kept everyone else's schedule, I would burn out. So my start time is based on my end time."

As Plec — clad in a black tee and jeans, her hair still wet from the shower — made her way inside, she walked past a row of framed Vampire Diaries posters that serve as an unofficial timeline of the show's evolution: from presumed attempt to capitalize on the world's Twilight infatuation to a pop culture obsession in its own right. Since launching in 2009, The Vampire Diaries has become a signature show for The CW, turned its leads (Nina Dobrev, Ian Somerhalder, and Paul Wesley) into teen idols, lit up social media every Thursday, and launched the first successful CW spinoff ever in The Originals. With the sixth season premiere on Oct. 2, TVD is set to become the network's second longest-running scripted series (behind Supernatural).

Plec's first stop of the day is an impromptu pow-wow with Michael Narducci — a former Vampire Diaries writer who is now the co-executive producer on The Originals — in the massive kitchen that serves as the equator between the two hemispheres of Plec's world. As Plec switches between water and Diet Coke with Splenda, the two craft an informal schedule for the day. She will begin the morning hearing TVD story pitches, participate in a conference call with The CW to get their thoughts on the upcoming episodes (referred to within the industry as a "notes call"), and wrap up her day with The Originals writers. With that plan in place, the two share a nod, and go their separate ways for now.

Jarett Wieselman for BuzzFeed

Two things immediately jump out about The Vampire Diaries writers room. One is that a massive TV in the corner is playing unedited footage — called, in industry parlance, "dailies" — from the Atlanta set on a loop, displaying every take from every angle.

"It's just efficient," Plec said. "The joke of being a showrunner is that people ask how you get it all done, and you don't. The list of things I don't get done in a given day is longer than the list of things I do. And one of the things that's first to go is watching dailies. There's nothing I can do about what's already been shot, so I've decided that spending the five hours scrolling through what was shot instead of moving forward is not the best use of my time. But this way I can see out of the corner of my eye if a director isn't using enough movement, if the close-ups are too tight, or if someone's hair looks terrible, and I can make adjustments."

The second thing that's palpable is the sense of camaraderie permeating the room. As Plec walked in, the room erupted in excited greetings (akin to Norm's Cheers greeting) from the writers, who seem genuinely excited that Plec has arrived. That air of familial cheer is something the 42-year-old actively cultivated by instituting an unofficial No Assholes Policy. "Unlike working on a feature film, there is no end date to this process," said Plec, "and, unlike a feature, you're spending every single day with these people, sometimes for upwards of six years, and one bad personality apple can really ruin the room."

One of the most important ways Plec discovered she could create this welcoming environment was by essentially eradicating the importance of titles within the writers room. "I didn't come up through title politics, which can be the worst," she said. "Other showrunners will tell you a million horror stories about the hierarchy of who's supposed to talk the most and who's supposed to be quiet. I've never played by those rules. So it's easy to create a comfortable environment when you're not over- or under-empowering someone because of their title. Therefore, personalities tend to come out and flourish."

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How LGBT Representation On Television Has Changed Over The Last Year

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According to GLAAD’s annual studies.

Chris Colfer as Kurt Hummel and Darren Criss as Blaine Anderson on Fox's Glee

Adam Rose / FOX

With returning characters Blaine (Darren Criss), Kurt (Chris Colfer), and Santana (Naya Rivera) on Glee and Captain Ray Holt (Andre Braugher) on Brooklyn Nine-Nine and the introduction of new ones like Jamal Lyon (Jussie Smollett) on Empire, Renee Montoya (Victoria Cartagena) on Gotham, and Kara's (Zoe Levin) two moms on Red Band Society, Fox has the largest representation of LGBT characters on scripted primetime series among broadcast networks in the 2014–2015 season, according to an annual report released by GLAAD today. The "Where We Are On TV" study, which measures how many expected LGBT series regular and recurring characters there are on broadcast, cable, and streaming shows for the upcoming season, first looks at Fox, NBC, ABC, CBS, and The CW. For the second straight year, Fox came out on top of the broadcast networks, with 10 series regulars and 64 recurring LGBT characters in the 2014–2015 season, the latter of which is a notable 65% increase from a year ago.

ABC was second best in terms of the percentage of LGBT regular characters in the current TV season, with 4.5%, while NBC went from the worst of the five broadcast networks last year to third this year, with an increase from 1% to 3.8% of its regular characters being LGBT. CBS remained in fourth place, with 3.2%, which is still an increase from 1.9% last year. And The CW went from 3% to 0%, having no LGBT regular characters this season, according to GLAAD.

Of both regular and recurring LGBT on broadcast networks in the 2014–2015 season, lesbian characters have decreased 2% from last year, bisexual characters have decreased 4%, and characters of color (of which 11% are black, 11% are Latino/a, 5% are Asian-Pacific, and none are multiracial) also decreased 2%.

Karma (Katie Stevens) and Amy (Rita Volk) on MTV's Faking It

Scott Everett White / MTV

Across all of the networks, however, GLAAD found that there were no expected regular or recurring transgender characters on broadcast networks for the 2014–2015 season. The CW's Jane the Virgin, though, features transgender actress Carmen Carerra, who plays the role of Eva, the titular character's cocktail waitress co-worker. Though it wasn't addressed in the pilot, BuzzFeed News confirmed with Carerra's rep that her character will be transgender as well. Since most shows airing in 2014–2015 have not finished filming, nor are they completely written, it is entirely possible that more LGBT characters could appear on broadcast series this season, thus potentially altering GLAAD's findings.

In addition to the "Where We Are On TV" study, GLAAD also released the Network Responsibility Index, which measures how much screen time LGBT characters and storylines were given in the previous 2013–2014 season and grades networks on a scale from failing to excellent. Though NBC didn't have the highest number of LGBT characters, it did give those it did have the most time, earning a "good" grade on the NRI scale. ABC, The CW, FX, and Showtime also earned "good" grades last season, while CBS, TLC, and USA ranked as "adequate." A&E, The History Channel, and TNT all earned "failing" grades. And, though Fox had the largest LGBT representation for the 2014–2015 season, it earned only a "good" grade for the 2013–2014 season, giving LGBT characters 36% of overall screen time.

Perhaps most impressive, however, is MTV's LGBT visibility. The network earned an "excellent" grade for its 2013–2014 season, thanks in large part to the debut of Faking It, a show about two girls — Amy (Rita Volk) and Karma (Katie Stevens) —who pretend to be a couple to gain popularity, only for Amy to realize she has romantic feelings for Karma. Fellow teen network ABC Family also received an "excellent" grade for characters like interracial lesbian mothers of three Stef and Lena (Teri Polo and Sherri Saum) and transgender Cole (Tom Phelan) on The Fosters, lesbian couple Natalie (Stephanie Nogueras) and Lydia (Heather Mazur) and gay character Matthew (Daniel Durant) on Switched at Birth, and lesbian character Emily (Shay Mitchell) on Pretty Little Liars.

Though there's been some improvement overall in terms of LGBT representation across the television spectrum, cable outdoes broadcast networks. In the 2014–2015 season, the number of LGBT characters on cable has increased by 34% and there is one recurring transgender character. Of the LGBT characters, 66% are white (a decrease of 5%), 10% are black, 11% are Latino/a, 5% are Asian-Pacific, and 8% are multiracial. Plus, there's been increased visibility for bisexual characters: Bisexual women make up 20% of all LGBT characters on cable, a 5% increase from last year, and bisexual men make up 10%, a 4% increase from last year.

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