Sharlto Copley

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Birthday:

27 November 1973, Johannesburg, South Africa

Height:

183 cm

Sharlto Copley was born in Johannesburg, South Africa, to Linda Stocks and Bruce Copley, a former university professor. His childhood dreams of acting were put on hold for many years when his television production company was one of few in his native South Africa granted licensing to create content for broadcast. Rather than acting in front of the camera, Copley found himself the businessman running the production behind the scenes, becoming South Africa's youngest television producer at age 25. It was during this time that he met a then-teen-aged Neill Blomkamp, who worked at Copley's company in exchange for use of the computers to pursue his talent for design. Blomkamp would many years later go on to direct Copley in his star-making debut as nervous bureaucrat Wikus van de Merwe in the Oscar nominated science fiction hit District 9 (2009). Copley followed this by fulfilling another childhood dream, landing the role of H.M. "Howling Mad" Murdock in the big screen adaption of the 1980's TV hit The A-Team (2010) and was also directed by Blomkamp once again in the movie Elysium (2013). He now continues to split his time between his native South Africa and Hollywood, pursuing more opportunities in front of and behind the camera. Show less «

To some degree Hollywood doesn't know what to do with me because the characters I do are so different. But hopefully that will give me longe...Show more »

To some degree Hollywood doesn't know what to do with me because the characters I do are so different. But hopefully that will give me longevity. Show less «

I feel so comfortable in an acting role, you know, as an actor. Maybe it's because I came into it late. If anything, I've felt frustrated th...Show more »

I feel so comfortable in an acting role, you know, as an actor. Maybe it's because I came into it late. If anything, I've felt frustrated that I can't carry a film because everything since District 9 (2009) has been supporting roles. I haven't found leads that I thought were good enough or there were twenty names ahead of me that will get the lead on a really good project. Show less «

[the challenge in playing 'Adrian', the mysterious baddie in Old Boy (2013)] It was finding the truth in that, taking somebody who could hav...Show more »

[the challenge in playing 'Adrian', the mysterious baddie in Old Boy (2013)] It was finding the truth in that, taking somebody who could have been soft as a child and having him damaged by things that happened to him. That happens to everybody. This is obviously an extreme case. I think every soft child in the world gets damaged. All of of us come into the world and get damaged. It's just a matter of how much. Show less «

I'm not particularly fond of playing villains. I do want to be a working actor, and I've had to look at what was offered to me, what roles I...Show more »

I'm not particularly fond of playing villains. I do want to be a working actor, and I've had to look at what was offered to me, what roles I could get, and what I could do with them. Even though I'm not drawn to putting those kinds of darker characters out there, I think it's an interesting challenge. Show less «

[How he got into 'Maleficent'] It came through my agents, and my agents gave me the script and said, "This is something going around town. A...Show more »

[How he got into 'Maleficent'] It came through my agents, and my agents gave me the script and said, "This is something going around town. A lot of people are going after it. You're probably not going to get in there." I was like, "Look, I really would love to do this." I went after it quite aggressively, in the sense of doing a tape. Actually, if I remember correctly, there was a delay because they thought it was going to someone else, but they were not sure. And then, as soon as they said, "We might be able to get your tape in there," I did it and they sent it. Show less «