Welcome back, Sacha Baron Cohen! The comedian who made his name with “Da Ali G Show,” “Borat” and “Bruno” has been flying under the radar for several years now, with small parts in movies like “Les Misérables” in 2012 and “Anchorman 2” in 2013. But his character Ali G just made an appearance at the Oscars and he co-wrote his new movie out next Friday, “The Brothers Grimsby,” in which he co-stars as the idiot brother of a hit man (Mark Strong).
Baron Cohen doesn’t do many in-depth interviews, but he just sat down with Marc Maron, host of the podcast “WTF,” to look back on his career as a satirist and professional provocateur. In the nearly two-hour interview, he regaled Maron with some juicy behind-the-scenes anecdotes. Here are a few of our favorites – with the scenes he’s referring to.
“Da Ali G Show” (2000)
As the Kazakh character Borat Sagdiyev, who originated in segments on “Ali G,” Baron Cohen performed a song in an Arizona dive bar the chorus of which was “Throw the Jew down the well,” which the audience eventually joined in singing along with him. “What does it show? Does it show that the people in that bar are anti-Semitic? Not really. They probably don’t hate Jews ... I think the dangerous thing is people who are indifferent about evil people. You know, essentially somebody comes up and has an incredibly racist song ... for a crowd to just come and sing along and go, ‘Yeah!’ is almost more dangerous. At university I studied Nazi Germany, and one main historian’s line was “the path to Auschwitz was paved with indifference,” which I thought was a great comment. It’s not that people actively hate black people or actively hate gypsies or actively hate Jews. It’s that they’re ready to ... let it happen.”
“Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan” (2006)
While doing publicity for “Borat,” Baron Cohen hosted the MTV Awards in Europe and did a bit that offended the president of Kazakhstan; the country officially denounced the film. “I heard that the president of Kazakhstan was coming to America, so I said, ‘Alright, I’m going to Washington.’ And the studio freaked out. They said, ‘You’re not going to Washington. You’re not making this movie political.’ And I said, ‘Well, I own the character, so I’m going to Washington.’ I decided I wanted to do a press conference outside the Kazakhstan embassy claiming to be the representative of Kazakhstan. We did some recon and found out we had like a 15 minute window when the president of Kazahstan would be heading to the White House. So we called the press there and I had this press conference. As a result of that, the government of Kazakhstan did a publicity campaign. They put about 30 million bucks into promoting the real Kazakhstan.”
“Bruno” (2009)
In the film’s final scene, Baron Cohen’s gay character has renounced his homosexuality and is performing as an ultimate fighter named “Straight Dave.” He dares anyone in the audience to take him on — and his ex-boyfriend volunteers. “[The crowd] were on my side — they were ready for me to really hurt him. And then I kissed him, and then they freaked out. At one point, I see a chair flying in — it’s a metal chair. And I’m lying on my back and I’m thinking, ‘If I hold my co-star tightly, I can move left and right and dodge the chairs.’ But eventually after two chairs, I hear, ‘Go go go!’ The [security] rule was once you hear that, you have to go ... but what we didn’t think about was that we’d left the crew there with 20 ultimate-fighter guys who didn’t know what was going on, and were really pissed at the crew, and about 200 people. And in the end, it turned into this riot. I think it took about 40 cops to march into there to rescue the crew.”
In another “Bruno” scene, Baron Cohen was already under scrutiny by the local police when he filmed a risqué scene. “We’re in Kansas, and the police find out I’m there. They go, ‘Anything else, we’re gonna arrest him.’ So there’s a bit where I get drunk with my assistant and we wake up in this hotel room, and we’re chained to each other in this S&M crazy gear. There’s a toilet brush in his mouth, there’s a pedal-powered f--king machine in the corner. We call down and I get the manager — ‘Has anyone got a key?’ — and they come into the room, and they call the cops. We always have an escape plan — we start running down the staircase, I’m in a G-string, [the security guy] goes, ‘Cops downstairs! Out the window!’ So we start down this rickety fire escape dressed in this S&M stuff, and we got down to 10 feet or 12 feet up, and [the security guy] goes, ‘Jump!’ I go, ‘What?’ He goes, ‘Jump!’ So I jump, I break my heel, and we jump into the car and we get out of the state. And we had to shut down the movie for three months.”
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