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Carnahan's Crack Commandos - Joe Carnahan on The A-Team

Joe Carnahan talks about Easter eggs, movie critics, Preacher and who his movies are meant for.

By Jordan Hoffman June 14, 2010
  

It wouldn’t be The A-Team if it didn’t include a major injustice. In the Summer ’10 Battle o’ the '80s reboots, The A-Team was duly crane-kicked by Jaden-san and The Karate Kid. Whatever. You and I both know that The A-Team was a marvelous and fun summer movie and The Karate Kid was dull.

As the weekend numbers came in, my old chum Joe Carnahan gave me a call to talk about the movie he and I both love. It was a little bittersweet that the plan didn’t totally come together, but we’re lucky that we still have a great flick to show for it.

Bradley Cooper
Bradley Cooper Credit: WireImage

Bradley Cooper

Jordan Hoffman:  Bradley Cooper is now officially the ultimate man's man.  I want to just hang around with him with my shirt off.

Joe Carnahan: Bradley has a maybe unseen, tremendous masculinity - a kind of action star vibe about him that I don’t think a lot of people would have named him for, necessarily. In addition, I think he’s quite a good – it’s funny, one of the scenes we took out of the movie with him at the end, literally pointing a gun to the general’s head – this whole moment where they’re trying to talk him off the ledge, it was funny, 'cause for an audience it’s suddenly like, 'weird, like now we’re in [a darker movie like] Narc,' you know what I mean? It’s such a good scene, such a powerful kind of moment that it will be in the extended version of the movie.

Sharlto Copley
Sharlto Copley Credit: WireImage

Sharlto Copley

Jordan Hoffman:  He's still a bit of an unknown agent - what can you tell me about Sharlto Copley?

Joe Carnahan: What people don’t know about Sharlto is how really bright, how sharp that guy is. Sharlto can be crazy with Murdock, but crazy like a fox. Very astute, and very gifted in terms of being able to do different voices. It’s funny, I had him do his Wickus voice, I thought it would be fun, and I wanted to hear it anyway - I tried to figure out a way to get him to say "prawn" but we couldn't do it.

Sharlto, though, is endlessly curious, deeply creative guy.  Like you say, he's an unknown commodity, but I think we're gonna start soon seeing him for who he is as he starts getting more roles.

See More: The A-Team | Joe Carnahan | Bradley Cooper | Liam Neeson | Quinton "Rampage" Jackson | Sharlto Copley