The actor behind controversial spoof reporter Borat has killed him off, he said in an interview with the UK’s Daily Telegraph newspaper published on its Web site Friday.
Sacha Baron Cohen said that Borat, the outrageous, blundering character from Kazakhstan who earned him a Golden Globe award last year, had made his last screen appearance.
He is also killing off his second most famous character, youth presenter Ali G, who like Borat often excels at eliciting indiscreet comments from interviewees thanks to his apparently guileless interviewing style.
“When I was being Ali G and Borat, I was in character sometimes 14 hours a day and I came to love them, so admitting I am never going to play them again is quite a sad thing,” he told the paper.
“It is like saying goodbye to a loved one.
“It is hard, and the problem with success, although it’s fantastic, is that every new person who sees the Borat movie is one less person I “get” with Borat again, so it’s a kind of self-defeating form, really.”
The 2006 smash hit film Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan offended some in the central Asian nation by portraying it as full of backward racists who drink horse urine.
The country’s government was initially angered by the film, which saw the character travel through the US in search of cultural enlightenment, but its response seemed to soften amid the publicity it brought Kazakhstan.
The makers of the movie are also facing threats of legal action from several people who say they were tricked into appearing in the mock documentary.
“Since last year I’ve been sued by about 3,000 people,” Baron Cohen told the Telegraph.
“Some of the letters I get are quite unusual, like the one where the lawyer informed me I’m about to be sued for US$100,000 and at the end says, ‘P.S. Loved the movie. Can you sign a poster for my son Jeremy?’”
Cohen is now finishing work on his next project in which he plays Bruno, a gay Austrian fashion reporter who also was introduced on his TV program Da Ali G Show.
Rowan Atkinson, another UK comedian known for playing a bumbling television and movie character, made a mistake of his own when he backed an SUV into a woman’s car in Aspen, Colorado.
Atkinson, famous for his Mr Bean character, was moving from a metered spot Thursday when he struck the Volkswagen Jetta, police said.
“He was backing out of a parking spot and didn’t see the car behind him,” said police Sergeant Dan Davis. “There was a little bit of damage to the car. He put a ding in it.” Davis said the accident was minor, and no citations were issued.
A phone message left for Atkinson’s management in London late Saturday was not immediately returned.
Trading karate chops for lawyers, tough guy actor Chuck Norris is going to the courts to take on a new book titled The Truth About Chuck Norris, saying it’s a big lie and he wants to stop its distribution.
On Friday, the star of such productions as Walker, Texas Ranger and Missing in Action sued Penguin and the book’s creator, Ian Spector, saying his good image is being spoiled by a book that depicts him as callous and unlawful, and includes false information that is sometimes racist and lewd.
The actor, whose real name is Carlos Ray Norris, says the preface of the book refers to meetings between Norris and Spector, an undergraduate at Brown University, and the book also thanks Norris for “playing along.” But, the lawsuit said, Norris never authorized Penguin or its Gotham Books division to use his name, image or likeness in connection with commercial sales of the book, which was published Nov. 29.
RSS