Sharlto Copley Talks About His Character In Neil Blomkamp's Chappie

At the recent press junket for the upcoming Maleficent, Sharlto Copley spoke with Coming Soon about his character in director Neil Blomkamp upcoming movie, Chappie.

"I think we're finding our stride now on this third film," he says, "sort of going back to a smaller style of filmmaking. I'm doing the lead again... I'm playing a light character… A child-like robot, which is great. He only gets to about nine years in his emotional development. I got to run around in one of the most dangerous cities in the world being a child. It was awesome."

The actor went on to explain how his character, Chappie is being constructed.

"The part that's blowing my mind is that they're animating over my movements," he continues, "So they're using absolutely everything I do in a sort of poor man's motion-capture style. I was never sure how this would translate, but the amount of me that is in the character is incredible... It's quite an amazing experience because you've created something totally different now. All you've had to focus on as the actor is the behavior. The essence of this being not all concerned about their appearance, which you normally would be concerned about as an actor."

Copley goes on to restate the level of detail that goes into the animation process.

"I can see in a little sequence if there's half a second that there's a stunt guy [instead of me]," he says. "I can tell that it's the stunt guy from the animation. I can tell that it's the stunt guy there, because he moves slightly different than me. Because the performance is movement-based. The audience won't see it, but I see it."

Chappie tells the story of a robot imbued with artificial intelligence who is stolen by two local gangsters who want to use him for their own nefarious purposes.  The film will star Sharlto Copley as the voice of Chappie, with Ninja and Yolandi Visser, voices of the South African Zef counter-culture movement and members of rap-rave duo Die Antwoord, as the two gangsters.

Based on Blomkamp's short films, Tetra Vaal, Chappie also stars Hugh Jackman, Ninja, Yo-Landi Visser and Sigourney Weaver.

Chappie opens on March 6th, 2015.

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