From Charlie's Angels to Miami Vice, 1980s TV shows are being turned into films with varying results, but with an audience of millions hungry for nostalgia, it's no wonder The A-Team hits the circuit later this year. Film writer Theresa Smith spoke to Sharlto Copley, who plays Captain 'Howling Mad' Murdoch.
Sharlto Copley admits getting cast in The A-Team movie was a bit of a weird story. While on the PR trail for District 9, he was approached by producer Jules Daly, who liked what he'd done with the D9 Wikus character.
She thought he'd be perfect for the role of a "crazy" pilot who can fly anything, and he got his girlfriend to shoot a couple of scenes in a hotel of him acting how he thought Murdoch would act.
"http://www.youtube.com/v/z93AADd2Dpo&hl=en_GB&fs=1&"
The audition tape worked and today his mom jokes that acting in The A-Team is his way of getting back at his parents for not letting him watch it when the TV show started on local screens. He didn't get to see the first series since his parents deemed him too young for the violence it contained.
He'd sneak a tape recorder into the TV room to tape the sound so he could join his school friends the next morning when everyone would talk about the previous night's episode.
His mom eventually relented and for his 11th birthday she even managed to source an A-Team cake, complete with a picture of BA Baracus. She recently unearthed a picture of him standing with the cake, which he simply had to send to the film production team. "The old South African flag, this black guy and me beaming from ear to ear," Copley said.
The production team then reproduced the picture on to a cake for his 36th birthday on-set.
They filmed from September to December in Vancouver, a city he described as friendly, gentle and "not aggressive like the big cities I'm used to".
He still calls Cape Town home, but was in Joburg recently to work on a short film. The satirical comedy about dealing with crime and pain is just one of many shorts he's worked on over the years.
Big as District 9 was, The A-Team was even bigger, with a budget of more than R100-million. "It's not the same kind of artistic process as District 9, it wasn't as physically demanding."
Copley said he felt spoiled during the filming process and the biggest change he'd experienced was that his access to people had altered dramatically because of District 9 doing so well.
He's been meeting film-makers he's admired and though it was a tad surreal in the beginning, that passed very quickly.
Another thing that's changed is the level of material luxury Copley now encounters - things such as flying in private planes and staying in grand hotels. He's even discovered the legendary mini-bar, "but I don't even drink", he laughs.
Playing Murdoch meant he "got to do some crazy stuff in a chopper", and to disguise his regular Capetonian English accent he adopted a non-specific Southern American one "which is what Dwight Schultz did in the original".
He met Schultz and Dirk Benedict (who played Face in the show), who make cameo appearances in the film.
While he has met a lot of famous people quickly because of D9, meeting Schultz turned out to be the encounter that meant the most to Copley. He has always been a huge fan, and he was nervous about how his portrayal would be received by the original actor. But showing Schultz some of the rough work turned out to be a good idea. "He was giggling and turned to me and gave me a hug and said: 'You are Murdoch'."
- The film comes out on June 11 in the US and August 20 in South Africa.