Sharlto Copley exclusive!

The A-Team

Growing up in the ’80s, Sharlto Copley was obsessed with The A-Team. ‘For the first two years it was on, I wasn’t allowed to watch. My parents thought it was too violent,’ he says. ‘But I sneak-watched a few episodes.’

Owning the action figures, stickers and having an A-Team birthday cake wasn’t enough. ‘I even had an A-Team gang at school. Then another group of kids in the same class started an A-Team gang and we had a fight to see who the real A-Team would be,’ he says. ‘We won.’

Decades later, all that practice has come in rather handy – this month, Sharlto returns to our screens in the film remake of the cult classic as mad-cap pilot Murdock alongside Liam Neeson and Bradley Cooper.

He says meeting the original Murdock – screen legend Dwight Schultz – was a ‘surreal experience’. ‘I showed him the improvised test that I did for the character. Afterwards, he turned to me with tears in his eyes and said “You are Murdock,” which was very moving.’

Dwight wasn’t the only one impressed by him. The A-Team director Joe Carnahan couldn’t stop praising him. ‘He had the essence,’ says Carnahan. ‘When I did the screen test, you saw it in his eyes. The guy is always working and thinking and behaving – some of the attributes a “classically trained actor” might not have. For Sharlto, it’s not about marks and cues. It’s about being in the moment.

‘Sharlto was never lacking for enthusiasm and suggestions... he’s doing this panhandle Texas twang
– it’s pretty remarkable.’

District 9

Sharlto’s Hollywood breakthrough is already the stuff of legend: his long-time friend, Neill Blomkamp, asks him to star in his sci-fi film, District 9 (based on a short film they’d worked on in 2005, Alive in Joburg). Sharlto agrees and stars as Afrikaans bureaucrat, Wikus van der Merwe, in the aliens-land-in-Joburg movie. The film, shot in 75 days across Soweto, is backed by Peter Jackson (of The Lord of the Rings fame) and becomes 2009’s sleeper hit. 

It’s not bad when your first film wins a slew of awards, is nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars and nets a whopping $203 600 000. Time magazine’s Richard Corliss writes: ‘Copley carries the film, bringing to a most demanding role the scheming dimness of Harry Dean Stanton mixed with the dogged, unwarranted optimism of Steve Carell.’

Newfound celebrity

Sharlto is familiar with the film business – he has worked as a producer and director since matriculating from Redhill High School in Joburg. The production company he co-owned, Channel 69 studios, became part of the Midi TV consortium that launched e.tv. Of his new on-screen career, he says, ‘I’m extremely grateful. Since I was 12, I wanted to work in Hollywood and be involved in making a film that was internationally successful. Neill recognised my potential and gave me a shot. He changed my life.’

Sharlto’s gone from fibbing about Hollywood dalliances (‘I once lied and told my friends that I kissed Alyssa Milano when I went overseas’), to becoming a star in his own right – talking to packed rooms at San Diego’s Comic Convention and checking into hotels under a pseudonym to avoid the fans camped outside. ‘Having to actually hide from fans – the very people who make your career – is an overwhelming experience,’ he laughs. Even interacting with other actors has been strange. ‘The oddest thing about meeting celebs is they’re usually congratulating me for my performance in District 9, which feels a little uncomfortable, given that I’ve only done one film.’

A woman named Charlize

Homegirl Charlize Theron also contacted Sharlto to congratulate him. ‘Charlize was extremely complimentary about my performance, which meant a lot to me because she’s been one of my all-time favourite actresses since the early days of her career,’ he says. Sharlto recently directed a hilarious sketch featuring Wikus and Charlize for this year’s South African Music Awards: Wikus searches for Charlize in the Hollywood Hills to persuade her to help him present the Best Afrikaans Pop Album award. She refuses to let him into her house, but he persists – playing a selection of sokkie treffers over her intercom. ‘She was amazing and let us film at her house – she invited all the crew inside and made coffee for them. She still speaks Afrikaans all the time.’

Afro optimism

Although he’s made peace with the nomadic life of an actor – dividing his time between Cape Town and LA – Sharlto says he misses his family, friends and two cats. And he hasn’t abandoned his desire to tell South African stories. ‘I’ve just finished making a short satirical comedy film about crime in South Africa. It was a personal project that I made as a way of dealing with the pain of crime in the country, which is the main thing, I believe, that’s holding us back from our potential.’

Sharlto’s Afro optimism is deep-rooted – whether being interviewed for New York Magazine or Vanity Fair, he always talks about his love of SA. ‘I’m most proud of how we achieved a peaceful transition to democracy in 1994, of the leaders like Tutu, Mandela, De Klerk that we’ve had – and processes like the TRC.’

So will he be attending any World Cup games? ‘I don’t think my schedule will allow it, but I’ve been promoting it as much as I can in my interviews!’