The Fault in Our Stars' Ansel Elgort to show off piano skills in new Cold War movie Van Cliburn

The 20-year-old actor will play the lead role of Harvey Lavan Cliburn

Ansel Elgort, known for The Fault in Our Stars and Divergent (Corbis)

Ansel Elgort, currently seen starring in box office hit The Fault in Our Stars, is to play a pianist in forthcoming Cold War film Van Cliburn.

The actor and model, 20, will play the title role in a biopic of US pianist Harvey Lavan Cliburn based on Howard Reich’s book of the same name.

Newcomer Elgort is an accomplished pianist, working as a music producer as well as acting in other hit films such as Carrie and Divergent.

Elgort will potray Cliburn, most noted for his 1958 win of the first quadrennial International Tchaikovsky Piano Competition in his formative years.

The competition was staged in Moscow at the height of the Cold War yet, despite not being what the Russian cultural majesty had hoped for, the young Texan triumphed.

Even President Khruschev couldn’t resist the charms and talent of Cliburn and personally insisted that the pianist should be rewarded.

Not only were the people of Moscow won over, but Cliburn fever reigned in the White House for decades.

Cliburn played for every U.S president from Truman to Obama, as well as royalty across the world. After a long and lustrous international career, he died from bone cancer at the age of 78 in February 2013.

Elgort will be playing the pianist at the seminal time in his life. He tweeted “some news on the movie front” with a link to Deadline revealing his new casting.

Elgort certainly seems a hot choice, with his most recent film making over £3 million in UK box offices, beating 22 Jump Street, Maleficent and X-Men: Days of Future Past at the weekend.