Leaving the technicalities that Copley had for so long been so involved with, he instead stepped in front of the camera properly for the first time, and straight into the place and mind of the character with whom he had been become so personally and deeply involved. Almost 100% of Copley’s dialogue as Wikus is improvised, and for almost six months of the shoot the only time he slept was in the chair in the make-up department during the hours it took the team to make the gradually more catastrophic transformations to Wikus’ body.
District 9 went on to become 2009’s surprise Oscar entry and Copley has since been making a name for himself in a variety of ways. His first major role after District 9 was as Captain H.M Murdock in Joe Carnahan’s 2010 The A-Team (which needs a mention purely because of his innovative audition: short on time while on tour promoting District 9, he locked himself in a hotel room and taped a series of Murdock-type scenarios using objects around him, which he sent directly to Carnahan, who contacted Dwight Schultz, the original A-Team’s beloved Murdock. Schultz infamously tweeted his appreciation with the words: ‘Murdock is dead: Long live Murdock’, and Copley had the role). He was also in the superbly crafted Europa Report (2013), Spike Lee’s somewhat ill-advised remake of Oldboy (2013), and of course, most recently in Disney’s long awaited if slightly disappointing Maleficent; whereas Copley’s King Stefan himself may have been about as useful as one knitting needle, Copley’s taking the role has at least kept him from typecasting – a great move considering his clear versatility.
But Copley and Blomkamp have remained a close A-team of their own. Since District 9 they went on to make the more ambitious (but perhaps slightly lacking in heart) Elysium in 2013, and the glorious sounding Chappie – this time also starring Hugh Jackman – is out next year and already hotly anticipated. And it all began from two young men – one who started as a 16 year old computer geek who found that he was a director, and another that started as a record-breaking producer, and found out in the end that he was an actor.