Skip to main content

‘Baby Driver’ Star Ansel Elgort Teases EP (and Jamie Fox Thinks It’s Fire)

ansel elgort baby driver
Image used with permission by copyright holder
Twenty-three-year-old actor Ansel Elgort, best known for his role as Baby in the comedy crime film Baby Driver, is on his way to becoming our most-listened-to iTunes artist.

This week, he teased the release of his new EP Supernova with a snippet of the music video via Instagram, and we’re officially hooked. The moody melody is spiked with rap, similar to the alternative styles of Roy Wood$ and Travis Scott. At the moment it’s unclear if Elgort enlisted another artist for the collaboration, or if it’s his voice rapping.

This verse goes, “I been waking up drenched in sweat, all my dream full of my regret (my regret), I keep hearing what my mother said, eyes are open all I see is red.”

#Supernova

A post shared by Ansel Elgort (@ansel) on

Then what we’re assuming is the chorus hits, featuring Elgort’s soulful tenor. “I met you in California, you told me you loved him in Georgia, your heart’s in the ground frozen over, my heart’s in the sky supernova.”

A second music video teaser was released on Elgort’s Instagram Thursday morning, January 11, and from the schematic of his posting, we predict Elgort will release the track Friday, completing a mosaic of Supernova on his profile. (Three images and one video have been released two days in a row.)

Ansel Elgort/Instagram Ansel Elgort/Instagram

The boppy trap beat with well timed drops is a departure from the disco-techno songs Elgort released early last year on his SoundCloud and YouTube. “Thief,” the most popular of these songs, gained roughly 10 million views on YouTube, featuring Elgort as a pretty-boy Julian Casablancas. Both the song and video proved the triple-threat’s ability to hold a tune and our attention, but Supernova is a maturation of his power (and much, much better looking and sounding if you ask us) promising to put Elgort on the musical map for good.

Ansel Elgort - Thief

If you didn’t know Baby Driver was a singer and DJ (he played a set at Electric Zoo Festival’s main stage under the name Ansølo and, in 2015, and was signed to Island/Universal Records, releasing his first single “Home Alone” in July 2016), you might also be surprised to hear his sweet moves didn’t start at the set of the 2017 film. Elgort tried out for the prestigious School of American Ballet as a child and attended The Professional Performing Arts School. Plus, talent seems to run in the family, as his mother is an opera director and his father is a famous fashion photographer.

But back to Supernova. Apart from thirsty comments from Instagrammers swooning over Elgort’s “little cakes” and sweaty, rain-swept hair in the music video, fellow Baby Driver actor Jamie Foxx was quick to commented multiple fire emojis, showing his approval for the track.

When will this moody masterpiece be dropped? Soon, we hope. Back in November, Elgort shared another video tease of the song on his Instagram story, where we aw him zoom in on an iTunes display titled, “2018 Supernova EP,” listing five songs at a total of 19 minutes. From the blurry looks of it, other songs to be released will include titles, “Save Me,” “Ansel Back in Time,” “No Tomorrow,” and more.

And if upon Supernova’s release we find Elgort is able to create music as good as he can drive, we’re gonna be pretty stoked.

Add Supernova to your dance playlist and music to listen to on-the-move.

Jahla Seppanen
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Born and raised off-the-grid in New Mexico, Jahla Seppanen is currently a sports, fitness, spirits, and culture writer in…
How long should you let new cigars rest in a humidor?
Cigar humidor

Looking at those beautiful, oily cigars you've just unboxed or unwrapped, the calling to light up is real. I get it. I always want to smoke my cigars right away, too. But you shouldn't. Mail day is always exciting after you've ordered a slew of new cigars. When they arrive, the real fun begins. You'll probably need to organize your humidor to make the new sticks fit or arrange them for optimal humidification. As you're handling them, it's difficult to resist the temptation to crack open the cellophane or boxes and smoke one right away. While you can do that in most cases, I would recommend against it. Depending on where those cigars came from, where you live, and how they traveled, they might need a little time to rest in a humidor. They'll need to replenish some humidity and moisture or dry out a little.
How long should you let your new cigars rest?

When you put cigars in a humidor, especially one that's filled, they'll soak up and release humidity over time until they reach the average RH (relative humidity) that you have set inside your humidor. If you have a device like a that does this automatically, it will produce moisture and humidity to keep the levels optimal. You can also achieve the same thing with in smaller humidors, which release and soak up the humidity to match the levels on the label. Boveda packs come in a range of RH levels, from the low to mid-60s to the mid-70s.

Read more
The 11 best Kevin Costner movies, ranked
He has a full resume of films, but if you're a Costner fan, then you must see these movies
Kevin Costner in Dances with Wolves

An all-American, blue-collar working man turned Hollywood essential, Kevin Costner has lived a life full of experience and dreams that some can only imagine. Starting out as a small kid -- 5'2" at high school graduation -- who moved around a lot, Costner was fond of things like poetry, writing, and singing in his Baptist choir. Outside of the arts, he was also very interested in sports of all kinds, which is reflected in his film career to this day. Also a man of the outdoors, Costner built his own canoe at 18 and paddled it through sections where Lewis and Clark ventured. Fun facts aside, Costner had a full and interesting life before the world got to know him as the charming and eloquent movie man we know him to be today.
From his past life, accomplishments, and hobbies, Costner was fully prepared to write, direct, and act for the screen as he fulfilled yet another lifelong dream. A man who was once called "The King of the Sports Movie," Costner has been able to act in films of a subject matter near and dear to his heart that became the films he is best known for. And that doesn’t include his many other successful movies having to do with politics, crime, and romance that also make for some of his best roles. Luckily, we’re here to talk about all of those films at once as we celebrate the man who has accomplished more in one lifetime than some could in many. Here are the best Kevin Costner movies of all time.

11. Open Range (2003)

Read more
The best Quentin Tarantino movies, ranked – Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, and more
If you haven't seen these films at least one time, you need to ... and then watch them again and again
Scene from Pulp Fiction, John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson

Of all the contemporary film auteurs, perhaps no one’s work has permeated pop culture as thoroughly as Quentin Tarantino's. This director’s hyper-stylized, retro fantasy worlds have come to define cinematic coolness. His clever mashups of genres, exquisite sense of aesthetics, impeccable editing, uproarious suspensefulness, and impossibly quippy dialogue have been endlessly imitated.
Given the current political landscape, Tarantino’s work has undergone a serious critical re-evaluation from Black and feminist critics and scholars who point toward both his allegedly abusive behaviors and the offensive politics and rhetoric of his films. It’s true that in this new light, for many, there may be nothing redeemable about his entire oeuvre. 
However, to discard all Quentin Tarantino movies would discount the impossible talent of his frequent collaborators and stars, such as Sally Menke (who edited all of Tarantino’s movies until her death in 2010), Uma Thurman (who not only played the protagonist of Tarantino’s most iconic movies but was also credited as a co-writer on Kill Bill), Samuel L. Jackson (a frequent Tarantino star), and many more.
With that in mind, here’s our (subjective!) ranking of the greatest directed Quentin Tarantino movies of all time.

9. Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood (2019)

Read more