Sharlto Copley
☼ Born on 27 December 1973, in Johannesburg, South Africa
BiographySharlto 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.
In the role of actor
Monkey Man (04/04/2024)
A man with suppressed rage seeks vengeance against the corrupt leaders who murdered his mother in Monkey Man. Kid (Dev Patel) is a man in the Indian city of Yatana, who ekes out a living getting beat out wearing a gorilla mask in an underground fight club run by Tiger (Sharlto Copley). Kid is tormented […]
Boy Kills World – TIFF 2023 (23/09/2023)
A deaf and mute boy is trained for vengeance against a murderous family in Boy Kills World. The world has become a dystopian wasteland thanks to the yearly culling put on by Hilda Van Der Koy (Famke Janssen) and her family, including sister Melanie Van Der Koy (Michelle Dockery) and her husband Gideon (Sharlto Copley), […]
Beast (19/08/2022)
A father and his daughters are trapped in the African Savanna by a vicious lion in Beast. Dr. Nate Samuels (Idris Elba) has travelled with his daughters Meredith (Iyana Halley) and Norah (Leah Jeffries) to a wildlife reserve in the African Savanna, near where Nate’s late wife grew up. While shown the reserve by friend […]
Free Fire (23/04/2017)
A arms deal devolves into a shootout in Free Fire. IRA members Chris (Cillian Murphy) and Frank (Michael Smiley) arrive at a warehouse in 1978 Boston to perform an arms deal, arranged by their intermediary Justine (Brie Larson). They are soon met by representative Ord (Armie Hammer), who leads them to conduct business with South African […]
Hardcore Henry (11/04/2016)
A bio-engineered man rushes to save his wife in the first-person action film Hardcore Henry. Henry wakes up on a table and is greeted by a female doctor, who claims to be his wife Estelle (Haley Bennett). Henry has been brought back to life with cybernetic implants, funded by the telekinetic madman Akan (Danila Kozlovsky). Estelle is […]
Chappie (08/03/2015)
From director Neill Blomkamp (District 9) comes this story about a police robot, which becomes a sentient being. To combat the high crime rate, the police force in Johannesburg has been replaced by artificially intelligent robotic scouts, who were designed by Deon Wilson (Dev Patel) for the weapons manufacturer Tetravaal. Tetravaal CEO Michelle Bradley (Sigourney […]
Europa Report – Toronto After Dark 2013 Spotlight Screenings (28/09/2013)
The found footage science fiction film Europa Report documents the first crewed mission to Jupiter’s moon of Europa. It was recently discovered that there is water underneath the ice that covers the moon, which gives the possibility that there might be life. The crew of the Europa One includes captain Willam Xu (Daniel Wu), second-in-command […]
Elysium (10/08/2013)
Neill Blomkamp follows up his acclaimed debut film District 9 will the sci-fi/action film Elysium. The film takes place in the year 2154, at which time the Earth has become practically unliveable, due to pollution and overpopulation. In response to this, the Earth’s wealthy decided to leave the planet and relocate to the space station […]
The A-Team (13/06/2010)
I was pretty much a toddler when the original television series was popular, however I still remember watching it. As you can guess, I don’t really remember anything about the show other than Mr T. As such, I can’t really compare the new film version to the show. However, I can say that this was […]
District 9 (15/08/2009)
This film, which is a expansion of director Neill Blomkamp’s 2005 short film Alive in Joburg, was essentially consolation by producer Peter Jackson for the Halo film (which Blomkamp was supposed to direct) falling through. I think a lot has been said about how this is supposed to reference apartheid in South Africa, so I […]