Sharlto Copley on Not Going Method for Once: 'I'll Do Crazy Stuff But Acting with Lions No Way'

BEAST star Sharlto Copley will usually go method for his characters but even the actor has his limits, and that includes not working with real lions in the Idris Elba movie. The South African actor jokes he's no alpha compared to the lions so he was relieved to see that CGI lions would be used. BEAST producer Will Packer also chats with us about the decision not to use even tamed lions.

BEAST is now playing in movie theaters. Directed by  Baltasar Kormákur, (EVERTEST, 2 GUNS, CONTRABAND), BEAST also stars Idris Elba, Leah Jeffries and Iyana Halley.

Idris Elba (FAST & FURIOUS PRESENTS: HOBBS & SHAW, THE SUICIDE SQUAD) stars in a pulse-pounding new thriller about a father and his two teenage daughters who find themselves hunted by a massive rogue lion intent on proving that the savannah has but one apex predator. 
 
Elba plays Dr. Nate Daniels, a recently widowed husband who returns to South Africa, where he first met his wife, on a long-planned trip with their daughters to a game reserve managed by Martin Battles (Sharlto Copley, Russian Doll series, MALEFICENT), an old family friend and wildlife biologist. But what begins as a journey of healing jolts into a fearsome fight for survival when a lion, a survivor of blood-thirsty poachers who now sees all humans as the enemy, begins stalking them. 
 
Iyana Halley (THE HATE U GIVE, This is Us series) plays Daniels’ 18-year-old daughter, Meredith, and Leah Sava Jeffries (Rel series, Empire series) plays his 13-year-old, Norah. 
 
From visceral, experiential filmmaker Baltasar Kormákur, the director of Everest and Universal Pictures’ 2 Guns and Contraband, Beast is produced by Will Packer, the blockbuster producer of Girls Trip, the Ride Along franchise, and ten movies that have opened No. 1 at the U.S. box office, including Night School, No Good Deed and Think Like a Man, by James Lopez, president of Will Packer Productions, and by Baltasar Kormákur. The film is written by Ryan Engle (Rampage, Non-Stop) from an original story by Jaime Primak Sullivan and is executive produced by Jaime Primak Sullivan and Bernard Bellew.

Genre: Thriller 
Cast: Idris Elba, Sharlto Copley, Iyana Halley, Leah Sava Jeffries 
Directed by: Baltasar Kormákur
Written by:  Ryan Engle 
Producers: Will Packer, James Lopez, Baltasar Kormákur
Executive Producers: Jaime Primak Sullivan, Bernard Bellew

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