Early life

Sharlto Copley was born in Pretoria and educated at St. Andrew's Preparatory School in Grahamstown and Redhill School in Morningside, Johannesburg. His father is Dr. Bruce Copley, a former university professor, currently a holistic educator/entertainer and multi-instrumentalist. His brother, Donovan, is the lead-singer of the Cape Town band Hotwater, whose music has been featured on BBC World and whose song 'Bushfire' was used in advertisements by the Italian shoe manufacturer Primigi.

Career

A year after leaving high school, Copley met director Neill Blomkamp. Blomkamp was 16 and Copley was 22, and Copley provided Blomkamp with use of computers at his production company to assist the company with pitches for various projects and allow Blomkamp to further pursue his passion and talent for 3D animation and design.

Copley starred in Peter Jackson's and Neill Blomkamp's District 9, where he played the lead role of Wikus van der Merwe, an Afrikaner bureaucrat assigned to relocate a race of extraterrestrial creatures unexpectedly stranded on Earth. In the film, the aliens, popularly and derogatorily referred to as "prawns", must be moved from District 9, a military-guarded slum in Johannesburg, South Africa, to an internment camp outside the city. Copley improvised all of his dialogue in the film.

In 2009 Copley won the Favorite Hero award at the IGN Summer Movie awards and Best Performance of 2009 for his role in District 9.

In 2010 Copley produced, wrote and directed an insert for the South African Music Awards called "Wikus and Charlize", featuring fellow South African star Charlize Theron. The clip features Copley as Wikus attempting to track down Charlize Theron in Hollywood to help him present the Award for Best Afrikaans Pop album.

Copley then starred alongside Liam Neeson, Bradley Cooper and Quinton "Rampage" Jackson in the feature film adaptation of The A-Team, which was produced by Ridley Scott and Tony Scott. Copley used a Southern American dialect for his portrayal of A-Team member H. M. Murdock, and employed other dialects, including Scottish, English, Australian, and his native South African, as part of the character's rapid-fire style. Dwight Schultz, who played Murdock in the original TV series, praised Copley's performance and said Copley was the only actor he knew of who was "true to his character."

Copley guest co-hosted WWE Raw on 7 June 2010, along with his A-Team co-stars Bradley Cooper and Quinton Jackson.

In 2013, Copley played fictional astronaut James Corrigan in Europa Report, the story of a crew of international astronauts sent on a private mission to Jupiter's fourth moon. The same year, Copley portrayed Agent Kruger, the secondary antagonist in Elysium, a science fiction film written and directed by Neill Blomkamp, starring Matt Damon and Jodie Foster.

Copley played villain Adrian Pryce in Spike Lee's Oldboy, a remake of the 2003 South Korean film of the same name. He also starred opposite Angelina Jolie in the 2014 Disney film Maleficent and played King Stefan, Princess Aurora's father, and provided the voice and motion capture performance for the film Chappie, also directed by Neill Blomkamp. Released on March 6, 2015, Chappie was Copley's first motion capture performance.

In 2015, Copley was announced to star as Christian Walker in the superhero TV series Powers.

Personal life

Copley has been in a relationship with actress and fashion model Tanit Phoenix since January 2012. On the 26 March 2015, Sharlto proposed to Tanit on the island of Hawaii. They wed in secret on the 15 February 2016, in Cape Town South Africa, inviting only a small number of guests to the wedding celebrations. He resides alternately in Cape Town and Los Angeles.

Filmography

Film

Year	Title	Role	Notes
2006	Yellow	Soldier	Short film
	Alive in Joburg	Sniper	Short film Also producer
2009	District 9	Wikus van der Merwe
2010	Wikus and Charlize		Short film Also producer, director, writer and editor
	The A-Team	Capt. H. M. "Howling Mad" Murdock
2013	Europa Report	James Corrigan	In select theaters and video-on-demand
	Elysium	Agent C.M. Kruger
	Oldboy	Adrian Pryce
	Open Grave	John (AKA Jonah Cooke)	In select theaters and video-on-demand
2014	Maleficent	King Stefan
	The Snow Queen 2: The Snow King	Orm	Voice: English version
2015	Chappie	Chappie
2016	The Hollars	Ron Hollar
	Hardcore Henry	Jimmy
	Free Fire	Vernon	Filming

Television

Year	Title	Role	Notes
2015-present	Powers	Christian Walker

Video Games

Year	Title	Role	Notes
2016	Payday 2	Jimmy	Voice and face, reprising role from Hardcore Henry, Also appeared in live action Trailer

Awards and nominations

Year	Award	Category	Film	Result
2009	Chicago Film Critics Association Award	Most Promising Performer	District 9	Nominated
	IGN Movie Awards	Best Performance		Won
		Favorite Summer Hero		Won
	Golden Schmoes Awards	Best Actor of the Year		Nominated
		Breakthrough Performance of the Year		2nd place
2010	Empire Award	Best Newcomer		Nominated
	International Cinephile Society Award	Best Actor		Nominated
	MTV Movie Award	Best Scared-As-S**t Performance		Nominated
	Online Film & Television Association	Best Breakthrough Performance - Male		Nominated
	Online Film Critics Society Award	Best Actor		Nominated
	Scream Award	Best Science Fiction Actor		Nominated
		Breakout Performance - Male		Nominated
	Teen Choice Award	Choice Movie Actor - Sci-Fi		Nominated

[ Source: Wikipedia ]