Ansel Elgort Creeps On Interviewer & Says He's Looking For Love Outside His Longtime Relationship

We don’t know if Ansel Elgort is trying to shift his public image right now or what, but this is not the way to do it.

The Baby Driver star has been getting pretty bad press lately for his new Oscar-bait movie The Goldfinch, with critics slamming the boring melodrama and often singling out its lead.

The Playlist‘s Jason Bailey gave a particularly harsh review, saying:

“At the risk of putting too fine a point on it, Ansel Elgort cannot really act. In most of his work, that doesn’t matter much; he’s a perfectly adequate Unthreateningly Handsome Teen in something like Divergent or The Fault in Our Stars, and in Baby Driver, he’s basically a puppet in the hands of a stylish director who’s figured out how to manipulate him into something resembling a human being.”

OUCH, right?

Related: Megan Fox Explains Her 2009 ‘Psychological Breakdown’

Ansel got so hot over words like that he came out swinging on his Instagram story last week, saying:

“Critics usually are really great writers and they have to kind of choose a side. They decided that pointing out everything wrong with the film is the best way to write their reviews, their articles. They are all great articles, too. All the bad reviews are well written but there is a lot of good in the film, too. The film does work. People who see it enjoy it and are moved by it.”

He even pointed out his mom liked the movie…

“The most important person it moved for me was my mother, and she’s not moved by all my films. She really liked this one, which made me really like it, too. So it’s still in theaters, take your mom.”

Oh man. This is what a child says about a failing science project.

Anyway, it’s in this context, this overly defensive state in which Elgort gave a really bizarre interview in The Sunday Times.

Per the Times, the actor puts on a pair of crystal-encrusted Celine sunglasses from out of his Prada bag and says:

“Sometimes the world is too bright.”

And thus the strangeness begins.

Journalist Elle Austin notes more odd behavior, including asking the waitress at the restaurant if the orange juice is really fresh, “like, right out of the orange?” and asks, “Can I bother you for a tiny sample?” He then sniffs at it before telling her:

“It’s a no from me.”

Austin says that while discussing his shirtless Instagram selfies, Ansel took out his phone and began taking photos of her without her permission, and continued despite her asking him to stop.

Per Austin, he dismisses her pleas and moves on to icky-sounding compliments, saying:

“See, you got shy, but I’m capturing the moment. It’s a nice image. You look surreal. Your hair is done in a way that is both put-together and relaxed. Your earrings are artistic and tasteful. Your dress looks like a mother’s, so people feel comfortable. You seem sophisticated.”

Yeah, that’s an ew from us.

When asked a very ordinary profile question, about what he wants to accomplish by the time he turns 30 in five years’ time. DJ Ansolo begins innocently enough:

“I’d like to have done a few plays and performed my music.”

Then says:

“I’d also like to find a lot more love.”

Sorry, what now?

“It doesn’t need to be sexual. I could be done sexually with my girlfriend.”

Hold on, wha??

For those who don’t know, Ansel has been dating his high school sweetheart, Violetta Komyshan, since 2012. Apart from a short breakup due to schedules in 2014 — which he quickly regretted — they have been together his entire adult life.

But apparently he’s looking for something more, and he’s ready to put it out there into the universe:

“I think we’ve been pretty clear that I want to feel free to fall in love with people and that [option] should be open, but sexually it can be closed off.”

Yeah, we don’t know their life, but just as an outside guess we’d wager Violetta is not as “pretty clear” on that point as he thinks.

Ansel goes on to explain what he means by falling in love with other people, saying:

“I’m in love with a bunch of my male friends who I’m not interested in having sex with, so why can’t I put the desire to have sex with women aside and let myself have love with women?”

Um, because you have a girlfriend?

He goes on to bring up how he’s apparently in love with Shailene Woodley, with whom he costarred in the Divergent film series. He says:

“I love Shailene Woodley and we never had anything sexual and that was great. There will probably be some sort of chemical thing at some point that you can’t help, but you just have to be disciplined.”

Is it just us or does it sound like he’s advertising the fact he really wanted to have sex with his costar but managed not to because “discipline”?

Obviously there’s nothing wrong with being friends with whomever, but when you’re talking about platonic fun and mutual respect, with no sexuality involved, why are you even calling it “being in love”?

Maybe we’re old-fashioned, but if our boyfriend of several years started saying stuff like this, it would NOT go over well.

What do YOU think of this wild interview, Perezcious readers??

[Image via Derrick Salters/WENN.]