Posts tagged the a team

Earlier this week I had the good fortune of talking to Sharlto Copley while he was in London promoting the UK release of The A Team. The South African actor was undoubtedly the breakout star of 2009 due to his leading role in Neill Blomkamp’s Oscar Nominated film District 9. He again thoroughly impresses in The A Team playing Howlin’ Mad Murdock (he’s as mad as a bottle of chips in the film). Check out what he had to say for himself below.

What was it like being asked to play Howlin’ Mad Murdock?

Sharlto Copley: I suppose it was moving in a way. The show was a big part of my childhood, Murdock was a character who particularly had an influence and was an inspiration for me to get into film in the first place. I started making little movies with my friends when I was ten years old, so it was a real honour, you know. I just tried to play a Murdock I would like – because I was such a big fan. I just wanted to do the best with the character I could.

You’ve got some hilarious scenes in the film, were they improvised? It looks like you had a blast, the Braveheart moment was great!

Sharlto Copley: There was a lot of improvisation and that was one of the reasons why I wanted to do the movie. When I spoke to Joe and after I sent him an audition tape that I’d made in my hotel room completely improvising, he made it clear to me he was very comfortable in that world. Bradley and Rampage are amazing improvisers and it really surprised me. I think some of my best moments in the film are with me improvising or with the rest of the cast improvising.

How did you find the accent?

Sharlto Copley: One of the things that always interested me was actors who did different characters, or more so caricatures, guys like Robin Williams, Dwight Schultz and Eddie Murphy. I think I had a fascination with that type of thing at a very early age. Actually because I wasn’t pursuing acting as a career I had slacked off from it, but when I was in school from about the ages of 10 and 19 years old I used to do it regularly, I could probably do 20 or so different caricatures dialects, I had been starting to get back into that so I find that stuff very interesting. I studied speech and drama in school, I’m very interested in phonetics and understanding dialects from a creative point of view and a technical point of view.

Dwight Schultz has a cameo in the movie, what was it like working alongside him?

Sharlto Copley: It was a pretty moving experience for me because I had just come off District 9, I had just started meeting Hollywood people, meeting someone who had been such a part of my childhood was a really moving moment. We actually had lunch and we were really getting along great, so I thought he’s not going to see much of what I’m doing with his character today, so I showed him the test footage I had shot, which was basically me improvising and doing different voices and using props in the hotel. The same audition tape I had sent to Joe. He turned to me and he had tears in his eyes as he gave me a hug and said you are Murdock. Then he posted on his website Murdock is dead, long live Murdock, which for me very moving. He called me after the film and he said how happy he was to see the character come to life again. It meant a lot to me.

So what was on this tape? I’m intrigued now.

Sharlto Copley: It was a couple of scenes that wouldn’t end up in the film. It was just different stuff, lots of different examples and a whole bunch of different scenes. One for example was a range of different characters with some stuff being very close to what the original Murdock was doing. Like he would have hygiene issues when he was in the bathroom, he would get paranoid about being stuck in a bathroom and having to call BA on one of those bathroom phones. He’s having this conversation with BA and BA is being difficult and telling him to call the house-keeper, but he doesn’t want to call the house-keeper. Stuff like talking to a plant and he could hear voices. There was an invisible dog that kept barking at BA and he thought the dog was racist (Laughs). They wouldn’t put that in the movie. BA was playing rap music next door and that was irritating him, so he phones BA as the manager and puts on a voice. Just stuff like that (Laughs).

Check out my Liam Neeson, Rampage Jackson & Director Joe Carnahan Interview For The A Team