MARITAL STATUS
Professions Actor , Screenwriter , Producer more
South African nationality
Birth November 27, 1973 (Johannesburg – South Africa)
BIOGRAPHY
Sharlto Copley got his start as a director in high school. At the time, the budding filmmaker was not afraid to push the limits and appeared in daring projects. A year after high school, he co-founded a media production company called Channel 69 Studios and met Neill Blomkamp , then fourteen, whom he hired as a graphic and computer designer. Channel 69 quickly became popular and won the broadcasting license for South Africa’s first private TV channel. Copley then broadcast a program dedicated to entertainment for a young audience called Deadtime , while producing commercials, music videos and short films. In 2005, he entered the film industry by producing his collaborator and friend Neill Blomkamp
‘s first short film , Alive in Joburg , in which he made an appearance. The same year, he co-wrote and co-directed two of South Africa’s most famous short films, both presented at the Cannes Film Festival in 2005: 2001: a space oddity, a comedy featuring the crash of a space shuttle in Cape Town, then Hellweek , a parody featuring a military camp to train South African artists. His transition to feature film took place with the help of Simon Hansen , with whom Copley co-wrote, produced and directed the supernatural thriller Spoon in 2008. The actor was propelled to the forefront the following year with District 9 , again directed by Blomkamp and produced by Peter Jackson , in which he played the lead role of Wikus Van De Merwe. A true outsider, this futuristic and fantastic fable about apartheid, unanimously praised by critics upon its release, was nominated for the Oscar for Best Film in 2010. Revelation of the film, the native of Johannesburg was offered one of the roles stars in the film adaptation of the hit series The A-Team alongside Liam Neeson , Bradley Cooper , Jessica Biel and Quinton Jackson .
Sharlto Copley then took on the roles of villains in effective productions. Thus, he is a sadistic mercenary, Agent Kruger, in Elysium , which marks his third collaboration with Blomkamp , then the manipulator Adrian Pryce in the remake of Old Boy by Spike Lee . From bad guy to good guy there is only one step, which Sharto Copley skilfully jumps by playing King Stéphane, the father of Princess Aurora aka Sleeping Beauty, in Maleficent from Disney Studios, with Angelina Jolie and Elle Fanning . He then reunited with Blomkamp for the SF film Chappie alongside Hugh Jackman as a villain, then played the hero of the explosive Hardcore Henry , shot with a subjective camera.
In 2018, Sharlto Copley tasted the joys of the small screen with the SF detective series Powers . Then, he took part in the comedies Gringo and Free Fire , as well as the biopic Ted K , which traces the bloody journey of American terrorist Ted Kaczynski (better known as the “Unabomber”). In 2022, he is confronted by a man-eating lion alongside Idris Elba in Beast .
