Original-Cin Q&A: District 9's Sharlto Copley Gets Into the Unabomber’s Head in Ted K
Ted K is a new crime drama film directed, co-produced and co-written by Tony Stone, starring South African actor Sharlto Copley (District 9).
The film depicts the true story of Ted Kaczynski, a.k.a. the Unabomber, and the events leading up to his arrest.
Kaczynski lived a life of quiet seclusion in a wooden cabin in the mountains of Montana. His growing contempt for technology and modern society soon leds to local acts of sabotage and deadly bombing attacks often sent by mail. Over the years, he killed three people and injured nearly two dozen more.
Copley is riveting as Kaczynski and takes the audience on a journey inside the madman’s mind.
Our Bonnie Laufer spoke with Sharlto Copley about his transformation and how playing the role changed him in many ways.
Ted K is Available to rent or own across all digital platforms on February 18.
CLICK HERE to watch Bonnie’s interview with writer/director Tony Stone
Sharlto Copley as Ted Kaczynski.
ORIGINAL-CIN: There have been several portrayals of the Unabomber Ted Kaczynski. But you really embody him in this film. Did you need major therapy after playing this role?
SHARLTO COPLEY: (Laughs). I think the role was therapy. It allowed me to realize that I do feel frustrated about how technology has got its grips all over me, how I am kind of enslaved by all the gadgets that I love so much. I am really frustrated about how it’s taken over my life.
ORIGINAL-CIN: Watching your performance I was thinking that you had to have gone 100%, method to play Ted. There's no other way that you could have really got into this guy's head.
COPLEY: It was interesting because I didn't say to anyone, “I have to be Ted the whole time!” But the crew was really into it. They started calling me Ted, and did so throughout the shoot and I just went with it.
There was so much research available, so much material available to us that really helped put me in his mindset. Our researchers just kept finding stuff for me to read and feed off of - 10,000 pages or so of his own thoughts in which he would psychoanalyze himself and the people around him.
He was very eloquent and a brutally honest man. Painfully honest about certain things that were going on at the time. So, there was so much material to draw from.
And just listening to him speak really helped. When I heard his voice and how different it was from any other version that I've seen portrayed in the media, I was like, “This guy's not how he's being portrayed, he's way more complex.”
He's energetic and when you listen to his prison interview, he sounds like the guy that you could sit down and have a coffee with. Like he would be an interesting person to talk to and not someone who is going to creep you out in any way.
He had so many different facets. But then, he would be very uncomfortable with people in different settings.
So I would say, I just approached it as honestly as I could. I tried to find parallels between his life and my life, in terms of being somebody who was brought up very anti-violence, but intellectually seeing that societies live with this violent underbelly or threat of violence, which is what the police do, which is what the army does.
We're not evolved beyond violence as much as we like to pretend that we are.
These were things that I've been interested in my own personal life. For example, why is Hollywood so anti-violence and yet makes so much violent material? Why is Hollywood so anti-gun, but everything's got guns in it.
I’m not making excuses because I have been in my fair share of violent films, but it made me think. It made me think about people watching our movies 2000 years from now and believing that we lived in such a violent society.
ORIGINAL-CIN: Yes, but you’re not going to resort to violence to try to make a point.
COPLEY: No, but clearly something snapped in Ted. He was at peace in nature, away from everything that made him crazy. He described the forest and the animals in the forest as his family. The anger he felt at the trees getting chopped down, that there would be no place for the animals and a road being put through one of his favorite pieces of land, that really made him angry.
ORIGINAL-CIN: What was more useful to you, his diaries or speaking to the people who knew him or had communicated with him. Because some of those people are actually in the film.
COPLEY: That's right. We used a bunch of people who knew him and had meetings with him, including Sherri (Wood) the librarian.
I would say the writings were definitely the most informative because they really were what was going on inside his head.
And I think many times the people who encountered him didn't really get to know him well enough to know what was going on inside his mind. So they've got a very one-dimensional view of him. I was talking to them and they would talk as if they knew him, but they really didn’t.
Sherri the librarian might have been a bit of an exception, because she did know him and spent the most time with him. She talked for hours when he came into the library. When I asked her what she remembered most about him she said his humor!
She said, what I miss most about him is laughing. We just used to laugh together, going through files. He was apparently a very funny guy. His brother would talk about his humor as well. His writings were filled with self-deprecating humor.
It was a fascinating journey, that I can assure you. He was a very complex character. Very extreme. I don't think, I mean, everyone has their views, but I don't think he's crazy. I think he's extreme, which is a difference to me.
ORIGINAL-CIN: He was clearly an evil genius. He was Harvard-educated, and then something must have snapped when he went off to go live off the land in the mountains. It had to have been more than just intriguing to play him. Perhaps one of the biggest challenges of your career?
COPLEY: It was difficult, but I have to say this role came at the right time in my career, when I've had more experience and I guess I was ready for it.
It was a beautiful environment to be shooting in, and I really tried to embrace the beauty and tranquility around me. I would literally just be sitting next to the water during setups. It was quite meditative out there between takes.
I understand how Ted must have felt living there. Most of the time he was at peace when he was out there, except for the times that he felt outsiders were invading his territory. I realized making this movie that this sense of peace was something that I miss and so it was a very cathartic experience.
It wasn't a very stressful experience. The worst part of it was dealing with the cold. It was really freezing at times.
ORIGINAL-CIN: You actually committed one full year to this project, not taking on any other projects. How hard was it to jump in and out of Ted’s skin so to speak.
COPLEY: It wasn’t too hard, but there were different stages of growing the beard, and getting in and out of Ted mode was interesting.
Truthfully, what always stayed with me were the issues he was so passionate about. Having done the movie, I really feel enslaved by my tech. And not just me. I watch my young daughter, how she's influenced by what she sees on TV. And her personality is being modeled by that, and what she thinks is being modeled by that.
I also can't get around Ted’s arguments of what's happening to the environment. He of course took it to the extreme, but getting to know this man the way I did, it made me really think about what is going on in our world. Ted just used his genius for evil and gave in to his belief system.
ORIGINAL-CIN: Are they going to show the film to Ted? Do you think he will get to see what you’ve done?
COPLEY: I hope he does. Apparently, he's ill right now. I'm pretty sure I know him well enough that he won't want to watch it, because he hates anything that anyone does about him. Mainly because he wasn’t in control of it.
But, hopefully if he does see it, he would know or at least acknowledge that it's the closest version to him that anyone's done before. I think we could say that quite confidently at least.
ORIGINAL-CIN: I had heard that they moved him into a different facility.
COPLEY: Yes, he's in a hospice version of prison. Yeah. So yeah, it was a strange timing with that and our movie coming out. But I hope he gets to see it and thinks, “Hats off to you, my friend.”
ORIGINAL-CIN: I have to ask, there has been a huge push from your fans on social media wanting a sequel to District 9. Are we going to see a reunion with you and your pal, director Neill Blomkamp?
COPLEY: There was some talk about us doing something, so hopefully we can get it together. We've been doing some drafts, trying to just get something that is worth making.