Sharlto Copley
Sharlto Copley
Sharlto Copleyis a South African actor, producer and director who has produced and co-directed short films that have appeared at the Cannes Film Festival, as well as commercials and music videos. He is perhaps best known for playing the roles of Wikus van der Merwe in the Oscar-nominated science fiction film District 9, Howling Mad Murdock in the 2010 adaptation of The A-Team, Agent C.M. Kruger in the science fiction film Elysium, James Corrigan in the science fiction horror film...
NationalitySouth African
ProfessionMovie Actor
Date of Birth27 November 1973
CityPretoria, South Africa
character accents critical
The accent is always critical for me because it informs a lot of the character.
self people creative
My combined experiences, doing different films, has made me very concerned about and interested in how you protect your creative self when the work, by default, is going to be judged by people.
thinking creative focus
You aren't always going to make stuff that everybody does. The sooner that you just realize that and accept that, the better. At best, hopefully, you will like it, every time, and that might not even happen. It's the nature of your work. It's just what comes with it. So, it makes it easier to deal with anybody criticizing you or anything thinking you're wonderful when you realize that you just need to focus in this one area, which is your creative fulfillment and enjoyment.
powerful people hollywood
Hopefully, you'll be able to find enough of an audience, each time, that you can keep working, rather than getting caught up in the Hollywood system, which can so quickly become about how much money something makes and how many people went to watch it. It's very alluring. It's such a powerful machine that's playing on you, the whole time.
kids first-love years
I love comedy. I suppose comedy is my first love, in a way. I did a lot of acting, funnily enough, unprofessionally, as a kid. From when I was 10 years old until I was about 19, I was always doing little sketches with my friends, and doing different accents and voices. Probably about 3/4 of those were comedic, in some way, and the other 1/4 was more serious stuff or more action or more dramatic little pieces that I would make. But, I tend to lean towards comedy.
real artistic-ability people
At the end of the day, all you really have is your own sense of your artistic ability and I've always stuck with that my whole life. I guess there is always a bit of relief that I have and real joy of being able to engage other people who are talented, equally or better than you, and you can work with them.
blessed character opportunity
I feel very blessed to have had the opportunities that have already come. I want to pursue it as long as I can find characters that resonate with me and projects that resonate with me. I feel very comfortable in that world.
character actors dialect
I grew up being fascinated by accents and dialects. One of the things that interested me were actors that were doing different characters, or sort of more caricatures.
able accents whole-life
I've always felt very comfortable with accents. Once I get an accent, I can do it, and that's just something I've been able to do my whole life.
thinking people special
You're special, if you have some power in the world. People are looking at you and they think you're special.
character acting rooms
I would love to do more acting; I really would love to do it, particularly character acting. I'm a character type of actor; I love situations where I've got a bit of room to improvise on the character.
kids years voice
I did a lot of acting, funnily enough, unprofessionally, as a kid. From when I was 10 years old until I was about 19, I was always doing little sketches with my friends, and doing different accents and voices.
struggle names america
Different people call me different things. In America, people really struggle with my name, so I don't have a nickname as such. I've had Sharlito, Sheldon, Charldo, really interesting variations on the name.
fire people guy
There are a lot of people that have marginal powers, like a guy who levitates a little bit off the ground, or someone who can breathe a little bit of fire, or someone that can freeze a little bit of something, if it's really close to him, you say, "Well, what do you do with that? How is that useful?" There is so much of it around you and you're seeing it, it becomes the important thing in society.