Before last week I had no idea who Sharlto Copley was but I promise you after seeing Maleficent, he will be an actor I will never forget. Sharlto Copley plays King Stefan in Disney’s Maleficent which opens in theaters everywhere May 30th. You may remember a little bit about King Stefan from the original Sleeping Beauty animated movie but Sharlto brings this character to life and you will learn much more about him in Maleficent. We had a chance to sit down a chat with Sharlto last week about the movie. He was such a fun person to talk to and we actually learned a lot of “inside” things that when on during the making of the film. Here are just a few highlights from the interview.
You might be surprised to learn that Angelina Jolie and Sharlto are quite the pranksters. This was no exception when it came to filming Maleficent. So what types of pranks happened on the set?
Yeah, there was a lot, it was pretty crazy. There was one example of the kind of thing we were doing. I was pretending in the scene where her and I still love each other, sitting down by the river and I sometimes would improvise. So I pretended that I’d heard a noise in the bush. Now while the cameras filming ’cause this particular prank was trying to get something with her that was sort of for the record on camera. So trying to prank her on camera. So I heard a noise, and I suddenly said to her, “Do you hear something?” You know, and she sort of looked at me but now she’s got to keep playing on. She’s like, “Oh, what’s he doing,” you know, but she’s got to keep on. And so I run off and I go behind the bush and I’m diving down and I’m like finding things.
And I come up with the raven, As if the raven had been following her. The whole crew laughed and I thought I was very clever and funny. And the next morning, I get to my trailer I think six o’clock or something like that. And I open my trailer, I’m all tired and just can’t wait to get into the trailer and there’s these two huge real ravens in my trailer. I was literally too scared to go into my trailer. It took half an hour before the guy could come and remove the ravens.
King Stefan isn’t your typical Disney love interest so how did Sharlto step into the role of this character?
I really don’t enjoy playing villains. Like, I find it quite unpleasant in some ways. My way in with Stefan was to take a very, sort of male trait, which is, you know, most men have sort of ambition, they want to kind of be the king of their castle. In this case he literally does become the king of his castle. I felt like there was a chance to almost play, a cautionary tale for men with Stefan, of what happens your sort of male drive and ego and ambition get carried away with itself. And in this case, worst case scenario, he’s prepared to betray his true love to become king.
In smaller ways you see that all the time. You see men whose families — very successful, very wealthy men whose families are in complete disarray. They don’t spend time with their wives anymore. They don’t spend time with their kids. Their ambition has sort of become their obsession. And that was kind of for me the interesting part about playing.
So how much did Sharlto want the role of King Stefan and did he audition?
I did really want this because I’d met Angie before and really felt she was very complimentary about District 9. She’d seen my performance in there and she said how we should work together some time. That was about two years before. And so when this came around I was really looking for a fantasy film. I was looking for something that I could show my seven year old nephew. Most of my films are like R-rated movies. I went after this quite aggressively. I shot a tape for it, a bunch of scenes, and I actually was saying to my agents, Guys, get my tape to Angie.” And they’re like, “Oh, we can’t. She’s on a boat. We don’t know where she is.” I’m like, “Just get it to her,” I know she did say, you know, she was interested to work with me, so I was very grateful to get this.
There are so many amazing scenes in Maleficent so we were interested to know if Sharlto had a favorite scene in the movie?
A favorite scene? No, not really. There was a lot of scenes that I liked. I really enjoyed all the stuff with the pixies. I love comedy and so that’s what’s always fun for me to watch, the comic relief characters in a movie. But I think there’s a lot of really, really cool scenes in the film, you know.
I often wonder about actors and what type of profession they would have chosen if they didn’t go into acting. Sharlto had a pretty interesting answer to this questions.
If I wasn’t an actor what would I be? I’d direct. I would definitely be a director. That’s what I was gonna do before and I think I’ll go back to that. But if I couldn’t be in entertainment I think I would have made a really good lawyer. My only problem would be I would not be able to defend somebody that I thought was guilty. Like, that would just destroy me. But I think I could argue very well in, in, in court as useless as that would be.
How similar is Sharlto Copley to King Stefan?
Well, like I say, I am similar as far as I’m a man who has ambition. But the thing I’ve learned since I became an actor is you don’t quite know what you have in you. So it’s an interesting job because you start exploring human personality and what personality is and all of that stuff in a safe way. But then when you get to a point it’s, like, okay I’m gonna sort of attack a woman, physically, you know.
And suddenly you realize that every part of me is programmed. I was brought up in a society, in an environment where you just would never do that. There’s no reality in which you would put your hands on a woman in an aggressive way in the culture and community that I was brought up in. My, sort of, primal male reaction if I saw somebody hit a woman at a table is I’d probably wanna go and just punch the guy in the face. So my whole program, everything is now I’m doing something that’s the complete opposite to what I feel instinctively, that I have to override that.
Logically I know it’s wrong or whatever else. But even my primal instinct it’s telling me, no, no, no. It’s the other way. It’s, like, protect, you don’t attack her. You attack the dude that’s attacking her, you know.
This film comes out right before Father’s Day. Sharlto had a great message that for dads who may want to take their little girls to see the film.
Spend time with your children so you don’t end up like Stefan.
It was such a pleasure chatting with Sharlto Copley! He is brilliant as King Stefan in Maleficent which opens May 30th! Make sure you go and see it!
*Disney provided my travel and accommodations while in LA. All opinions expressed are my own.