'Maleficent' Star Sharlto Copley on Pranking Angelina Jolie

You know I'm not I you're in you've been in Hollywood long enough. you know. Then you said I recognize you. so I remembered you. You remembered me. It was so good. It was so. I wasn't like, hey, nice studio. Hi nice to meet you. I went like Oh, I know that's the worst. I didn't remember your name, but I remembered you. That's the honest. Is Nikki no chance no back. Nikki no chance. No. Don't ask. Okay. No chances and like guys are never going to get me. They no chance don't ask. Yeah, sure. But not in a mean way. Okay. More when I was twelve. I get it. Yeah. Um is it great to have you back? When you were twelve? You were like spending guys off since you were twelve? Wow. That's I believe it. I just it's just you know that's that's that's At some point you got to drop that and just accept love into your life. That's That's the message of the film like just let love in. Look you just did a segway for me. I'm telling you. It's like King Stefan, look what happens to him because he doesn't let love into his life. Don't go the same route. But can I be honest? Nikki possibly maybe If we're talking about love Yeah. Here's the sick thing. I can't your character is my type. Okay. Because I Okay, and I'll tell You tell me why.

No you tell me. Well no the thing is and I know in all seriousness, okay. He is really, um what I tried to do was play a male archetype that is based It's not just a bad guy. He's ambitious and he's driven. And you know this is something that alpha male guys are. And lots of men really are like that. They like to, you know, control their environments. Right. Um they want to be the king of their castle, you know literally and unfortunately, you know in this case what happens to a lot of men is they sort of forget that that strength is really supposed to be protecting woman. And you sort of go out there and you protect your daughters and your wives. Right. Um but very often they get carried away with the power and all of that. And then you know this is a classic case of what would a man you know they become so obsessed with their careers or their power that they forget about their families and their partners and lose the love in their lives.

And you did bad things too. You did bad things to Angelina's character. And I still wanted you two to end up together. I still

Yeah so did I but Disney just didn't want that. I was like, listen we could he could just spend some time with the child and then learn the error of his ways. But I think it makes it a better morality tale where you kind of see like love saves Angie from her pain and her anguish. Yes. Because she lets it. And Stefan is too far gone. That he just won't and so that's I it really resonated with me. I mean any guy who's out there. You see so many stories of that, you know, where families are falling apart. The guy's got a hundred million dollars, but he's like the worst father, the worst husband. Right. It's like what are you going to do like drown in your hundred million dollars like what.

Um speaking of Speaking of which the last time you were in here was for Elysium. Yes. And even though you were talking about Matt Damon, you were talking about you are the ultimate and I know people ask and interview it all the time about pranks. But I know in your case, you were talking about how you and Matt did it. That you said you teased us and you said that it was like the ultimate prank battle between you and Angelina on the set. Yes. So can you tell us about it now that you're back and now that we're talking about this movie.

I started it. And I took a real chance on the first day to like see if she would sort of how she would respond. And everybody was like, don't do it. Don't do it because Angelina and it's like she's going to be upset. And don't upset her. And I was like, ah, we'll just see what happens. And she turned to have like such a she's such a good sport and so down to earth and stuff. And um No, but I would do stuff, you know, it was it was a constant battle between different ways of kind of one-upping each other. So I did, you know, one of the many that that happened was, um I, you know, I have the scene where I am sitting down, you know romantically with her by the river. Yes. Um and uh and so I started improvising as I do from time to time. And so she just had to go with it now because I was doing something and I heard a noise in the bush. And so I was like, you know, I jumped up and I grabbed my knife. And Ang's like all the chemists were rolling. I better just let him do his thing. And I went back and I was like, you know, and I heard something. And then I like dove into the bush and I did this whole like mime of like, you know, going behind like fighting something. And I came out and I was like, I got him. And it was like the Raven on the end of my knife, you know, deal with. And the whole crew like all cracked up and I was like, he's been following you the whole time, you know. And she and she just cracks up laughing because I was, you know, it was it was just like trying to that part of the prank was trying to do things on camera that were actually where she was forced to sort of play along until the moment of like sort of going like do I is he now like what's he doing? Yeah. So I was really chuffed with myself and I was like, okay, that's a cute one. And I got the whole crew laughing. And then next morning, I arrived on the set. 7 a. m. 6:30 in the morning. No, yeah, yeah. Six or 6:30. It's usually early call time. And I go into my trailer and there are these two huge ravens, real ones. Because this was a stuffed animal that I I'd hidden the animal there with and my knife. In my trailer. And sort of looking at me. And I filmed them. I filmed them on my phone and they they had like on my on my seat. And one did as I was filming. The Raven was like and it was like, you know, all over. And I was just like, oh my God. She's, you know, it was just it was so intimidate. I couldn't go into the trailer. I was like looking around for somebody. There's nobody. I'm like, how did she get? Because we had wrapped. This was the part. This is this was the battle. It was like, we'd wrapped the night before like 9:00 p. m. So she managed to get, she's, you know, she's boss so she just like presses buttons and calls and happens, you know. And so somebody came in at 5:30 to like put ravens in my trailer. And this was like an ongoing thing. And it just sort of spiraled to much greater depths, but they will remain between her and I for for all time, I think.

Next time you come in.

Yeah, maybe in a few years time. I'll be like, okay, this is how I want it because I did win.

Thank you again for coming in. It's good to see you.

It's good to see you too. Come back again.