Sharlto Copley quotes:

Interestingly enough, the game I played the most ever was Street Fighter II, back in the day. That would probably still stick as one of my favourite games. Just being a bit of an '80s guy.

I always find the more you can draw on real life characters, people, situations, it works better. Certainly for designing a character, I prefer to draw on real people rather than other guys I've seen in movies, rather than 'here's my version of Clint Eastwood' or whoever.

Villains are not fun for me to play, as such. But caricature-ish, intense behaviors that are based on real human traits are interesting. That makes an interesting story.

Different people call me different things. In America, people really struggle with my name, so I don't have a nickname as such. I've had Sharlito, Sheldon, Charldo, really interesting variations on the name.

I walked out of... was it 'Stardust?' That thing with the witches? I was so looking forward to it, but I just couldn't handle it, man. Ten minutes in, and I was gone. I didn't have to walk out of 'Transformers 2' because I didn't go. I loved the first 'Transformers.' I loved it, but I heard too many of my friends walked out of the second one.

I love comedy. I suppose comedy is my first love, in a way. I did a lot of acting, funnily enough, unprofessionally, as a kid. From when I was 10 years old until I was about 19, I was always doing little sketches with my friends, and doing different accents and voices. Probably about 3/4 of those were comedic, in some way, and the other 1/4 was more serious stuff or more action or more dramatic little pieces that I would make. But, I tend to lean towards comedy.

The acting world is a humbling experience, I find.

I'm a huge fan of Dustin Hoffman.

I would definitely describe myself as a workaholic.

I did a lot of acting, funnily enough, unprofessionally, as a kid. From when I was 10 years old until I was about 19, I was always doing little sketches with my friends, and doing different accents and voices.

You need that marketing power. You need to go do the interviews. You need to put yourself out there and risk and be open to the fact that people are going to not like you, and they are just going to rip you apart, and whatever you say in an interview can get quoted out of context.

That's what a powerful story does. It creates a more intense experience of life for you to watch. That's what a good film does for me, anyway. That process, I enjoy. It just makes for entertaining characters and entertaining films.

You're special, if you have some power in the world. People are looking at you and they think you're special.

I'm not interested in going to casting after casting, trying to get into that game. So there is a part of me that knows that I will do more characters, even if I have to produce those projects myself to get those projects out there. If the right characters come along, I would love to. I would jump at the chance.

I think every soft child in the world gets damaged. All of of us come into the world and get damaged. It's just a matter of how much.

At the end of the day, all you really have is your own sense of your artistic ability and I've always stuck with that my whole life. I guess there is always a bit of relief that I have and real joy of being able to engage other people who are talented, equally or better than you, and you can work with them.

Because I'm a filmmaker at heart, I know a villain can't be too humanized and the audience can't empathize with him too much.

Hopefully, you'll be able to find enough of an audience, each time, that you can keep working, rather than getting caught up in the Hollywood system, which can so quickly become about how much money something makes and how many people went to watch it. It's very alluring. It's such a powerful machine that's playing on you, the whole time.

I feel very blessed to have had the opportunities that have already come. I want to pursue it as long as I can find characters that resonate with me and projects that resonate with me. I feel very comfortable in that world.

I grew up being fascinated by accents and dialects. One of the things that interested me were actors that were doing different characters, or sort of more caricatures.

I suppose comedy is my first love, in a way.

I would love to do more acting; I really would love to do it, particularly character acting. I'm a character type of actor; I love situations where I've got a bit of room to improvise on the character.

I've always felt very comfortable with accents. Once I get an accent, I can do it, and that's just something I've been able to do my whole life.

My combined experiences, doing different films, has made me very concerned about and interested in how you protect your creative self when the work, by default, is going to be judged by people.

The accent is always critical for me because it informs a lot of the character.

There are a lot of people that have marginal powers, like a guy who levitates a little bit off the ground, or someone who can breathe a little bit of fire, or someone that can freeze a little bit of something, if it's really close to him, you say, "Well, what do you do with that? How is that useful?" There is so much of it around you and you're seeing it, it becomes the important thing in society.

You aren't always going to make stuff that everybody does. The sooner that you just realize that and accept that, the better. At best, hopefully, you will like it, every time, and that might not even happen. It's the nature of your work. It's just what comes with it. So, it makes it easier to deal with anybody criticizing you or anything thinking you're wonderful when you realize that you just need to focus in this one area, which is your creative fulfillment and enjoyment.