“It was kind of miraculous that I
ended up being in the film at all,”
chuckles Sharlto Copley, thinking back
to the creation of 2009’s scrappy,
surprise sci-fi hit District 9. Whenever talk
turns to how director Neill Blomkamp brought
this politically charged tale of alien and human
strife in Johannesburg to life – and how Copley
found himself as its unlikely star – it’s hard for
him to hide a sense of utter disbelief that the
whole thing actually happened. In retrospect,
we can hardly blame him. An unknown actor
headlining a ground-breaking new movie
packed with high-end visual effects, with mega-
director Peter Jackson producing? It’s far from
an easy sell. “I have a whole different sense of
how crazy it was,” he says in retrospect. “The
way the stars aligned is just astounding.”
He’s not wrong. Ten years ago, nobody knew
Copley, who was then a producer with dreams
of creating his own TV channel. Likewise no one
had heard of Blomkamp either, himself a visual
effects whizz with hopes of helming his own
feature film. When the opportunity finally arose
to make their dreams a reality, the pair’s shared
experiences growing up in a country stricken
with apartheid led them – and writer Terri
Tatchell – to create a new installment to both
the found-footage and science fiction genres.
The result was District 9, a film that transported
us to an alternate timeline where aliens landed
in Johannesburg in 1982 and quickly became
second class citizens. Cut to present day, and
with tensions at an high, company man Wikus
(Copley) is sent into the alien encampment
to relocate South Africa’s new neighbours –
however as with most sci-fi endeavors, things
don’t quite go according to plan.
“The early part of our relationship happened
at the point where cheaper technologies were
ACTOR SHARLTO COPLEY RETURNS TO THE ALIEN SLUMS
OF JOHANNESBURG TO TALK US THROUGH HIS UNLIKELY
JOURNEY TO DISTRICT 9
WORDS SIMON BLANDFLASHBACK
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FLASHBACK
DISTRICT 9DISTRICT 9
becoming available,” says Copley on his
long-standing friendship with Blomkamp. “We
were all trying to make our stuff look as cool
as possible with as little money as possible. I
distinctly remember Neill saying: ‘Everyone is
able to make their stuff look really slick – and I
want to do something different.’”
Shortly after they met, Blomkamp emigrated
from South Africa to Vancouver and identified a
story inspiration that was oddly close to home.
“Neill wanted to shoot in the townships because
people were so removed from the world that we
grew up with,” Copley tells us. “He came
up with this idea of shooting very raw footage
that looked like shitty corporate video and
putting in high-end CGI. The first thing he ever
did was use high-end robots – which became
the seed of Chappie,” he reveals, detailing early
inspirations for Blomkamp’s third feature. “Soon
after, he came up with the idea of aliens living
in the townships.”
What followed was Alive In Joburg, a short
that showed exactly what Blomkamp’s cheap
and cheerful CGI could do. The film’s success
landed Blomkamp on the radar of Peter Jackson,
who lined him up to helm the long-in-gestation
movie adaptation of the videogame Halo. When
things ultimately fell apart, the duo’s little aliens-
in-the-slums idea suddenly took precedence.
“It was never a proper script, it was always in
a treatment format,” says Copley, remembering
the film’s loose development process. “As soon
as I saw Neill’s idea – that Wikus was going to
turn into one of these creatures – I thought we
had structural gold from a story point of view.
It was a very solid concept. You’re going to turn
into the thing you’re oppressing? Coming from
South Africa, that resonated very deeply at a
creative and artistic level.”
With the core of their story set, Copleysigned on as the film’s producer, ready to guide
Blomkamp’s vision to the screen. However when
the time came to capture some rough footage to
provide a flavour of the film’s free-flowing tone,
everything changed.
“I started to be Wikus and the character came
to life,” smiles Copley, recalling his experiences
standing in as the lead for Blomkamp’s sizzle-
reel. “We’d done Alive In Joburg so I was
familiar with the world Neill was building. I
basically just bullshitted about the world, the
aliens and everything I knew – and the things
I didn’t know, I just made up,” he laughs. “We
did an improv session with local residents in
Soweto. I said ‘pretend I’m from the government
and I’m evicting you’. That went a lot better than
Neill or I were planning and by the time we got
to the end, we knew something magical had
happened – but there was still no thought that I
was going to play Wikus.”
After digesting the footage, Blomkamp was
convinced of two things: he was definitely on
to something with the film’s improvisational
feel – and if he wanted to keep it, he needed
to use Copley’s light-hearted talents. “There
was 60 million bucks on the line and Neill says
he wants to use his buddy? You can imagine
that conversation,” laughs Copley on what
happened next. “They were like ‘isn’t Sharlto
producing the movie? Has he done anything
else?’ then ‘wait, he’s not an actor AND he’s
going to make up all his lines?’ You just couldn’t
do that deal in Hollywood now. The only reason
we were able to was because Peter Jackson
had absolute control in his deal. Pete just said
yes – use Sharlto,” explains the actor. “It wasn’t
intimidating at all, which is weird as I think
about it now. It just flowed naturally.”
Of course, once he had secured the role,
Copley made time for some on-the-job