The Daily Beast Podcast - Sacha Baron Cohen on Borat, Trump and Risking His Life for Comedy

Episode Date: October 21, 2020

Comedy legend Sacha Baron Cohen goes deep on all of the crazy things that happened during the filming of his Showtime series ‘Who Is America?’—including truly incredible stories about his interactions with Sarah Palin, O.J. Simpson, Ben Carson and more. He also talks about interviewing Donald Trump as Ali G. and reveals some big secrets behind his classic film ‘Borat.’This episode was recorded in front live audience as part of the SAG Conversations series at the SAG-Aftra Foundation in Los Angeles on May 21, 2019.Follow @SachaBaronCohen and @mattwilstein on Twitter and @lastlaughpod on Instagram.  Highlights from this episode and others at The Daily Beast. Please subscribe to ‘The Last Laugh’ podcast to hear more great interviews with comedians. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, everybody, with the Borat sequel premiering this week, we wanted to share with you this live interview that the Daily Beast Matt Wilson did with Sasha Baron Cohen for his podcast, The Last Laugh. Sasha shared a ton of wild stories from his career, including the time he interviewed Donald Trump as Ali G. And getting chased out of a hotel by Ben Carson's secret service agents. Who knew Ben Carson had secret service? He also revealed why he decided to cut Sarah Palin out of his show. Showtime series. I'm curious about that too. Who is America? And confirmed a hilarious rumor about how Borat broke up Pamela Anderson and Kid Rock's marriage. We think you are going to love this interview. If you do, please make sure to subscribe to The Last Laugh, wherever you get your

podcasts to hear Matt Wellstein interview comedians like Sarah Silverman, Ricky Jervais, Samantha B, and so many others. This is The Last Laugh, Sasha Baron Cohen. Good evening. Thank you for coming. Thank you for coming. My wife is here. She snuck in. So,

Sasha, the first time that we all caught wind of this show was only about a week before it started airing. I think it was around July 4th last year. At that point, how long had you been working on this show? It'd been close to two years. Wow. Actually.

So, yes, there was a debate as to, I didn't want to do any publicity, mainly out of laziness. And, I mean, is there a purpose in it? I mean, you see the event. Not for this show. But also, because I was scared that some of the people we'd interviewed would then try and injunct the show. So if they knew about it, they'd come out and say, we're going to go to the judge and stop the show coming out. And that happened anyway, within that one week, people started coming out of the woodwork and saying, I think that I may have be on this show and I want to try to get ahead of it. So how, how?

How did you feel when that started to happen? Well, it was bizarre because the first person who came out thinking that they were on the show was Sarah Palin. And I was in Morocco at the time shooting something else. And it was, I mean, she was getting head up. She was going around the talk shows and talking about how outrageous it was that we'd put her in the show. And talking about, you know, saying this is disgusting and it's on showtime at 10 o'clock. and Sunday night. She was literally promoting

a show that she was not in. And I was there in Morocco on set and I had this dilemma which was, you know, I didn't want to reveal that she wasn't in the show

and yet I did, part of me wanted to correct her because she was spreading some misinformation which I know is quite a popular thing to do now. And, you know, I was particularly worried

because obviously Ms. Palin is known for her factual accuracy. I mean, and she's got fantastic eyesight. I mean, after all, she can't see Russia from her bedroom. And so at that point, you already knew she wasn't in the show, so did you consider putting her in the show, or was it funnier to you that she wasn't in the show and was actually out there promoting it? The latter, yeah.

I quite enjoyed that she was, I mean, she was saying that I was a disgusting person, that I had, she mistakenly accused, me of imitating a veteran. But the problem was, I mean, the interview wasn't very good. So for the interviews to work, you need somebody to fully engage and answer the questions. And she sort of gave these rote answers as if she was on a presidential campaign. Yep, just like her candidacy for vice president, she wasn't good enough to make the show. You did give her a credit at the very end in the last episode, I believe, as a special publicity consultant, inadvertent. Yes, I put in brackets, unintended. Yeah, which I enjoyed, I enjoyed that. But I did hear that you did get some pressure

from Showtime to include her because everyone was kind of waiting for this Sarah Palin moment to happen. And as the audience, we didn't know that it wasn't coming. Yes, I mean, there was, you know, Showtime put quite a lot of pressure on. They were saying, you know, everyone's talking about this. You've got to put it in. And I was saying it's not. funny, I'm not putting it in, then a few days would pass and they'd say, you've got to put it in, everyone's talking about it, but ultimately, I was not that concerned with how many people would see the show. I probably, is this being filmed? It's probably, that's probably made me unemployable. I was more concerned with the quality of the show, so I didn't really want to

compromise with something that was a five out of ten, you know, just to do it for the PR. Yeah, I mean, I know you're known for your incredibly high standards. I actually interviewed Larry Charles not too long ago and he was talking about his experience working with you on Borat and Bruno and basically saying that there were scenes that you would shoot and he would say this is brilliant it has to be in the movie and you were the one who said

nope not getting enough laughs is that is that right? So yes I'm pretty rigorous what I've sort of encountered over the years is that you'll be in a writer's room you'll be around people who've actually made the movie and we think it's fantastic

and there's a famous quote, which is, I'm going to misquote it, but something like saying that an audience can be made up of imbeciles, but together they're a genius. And that's always, you know, the principle that I've used when I've showed material, where if the audience laugh and you have 100 people, then it's funny. And you can't, you can argue and say, well, we thought it was funny. If they're not laughing, it's not funny. Occasionally, it leads to real confusion. So sometimes, so there's two reasons why an audience don't laugh. Either one, it's not funny or two, you've cut it wrongly. I'll give you a quick example if I may. If I may. Yes. So on Borat, who has seen Borat the movie?

Thank you very much. I just wanted you to cheer. I knew you'd seen it anyway. And the other film's not that many people have seen. But anyway, that one was it. So anyway, there is a scene in it. I don't know if you remember where there's Borat goes to a Jewish bed and breakfast. He doesn't realize they're Jewish. And at one point he realizes they're Jewish. and he eats some food and he's told that it's kosher. And the moment I'm told it's kosher, he spits it out. And it wasn't getting a laugh. And I was like, why is it not getting like that?

You know, that's funny. He's spitting it out because he thinks it's kosher. And in the end, I went to the editor. I go, it doesn't make any sense. So I said, you know what? We're going to go frame by frame. And we went frame by frame and we found out that three frames before the spit, an editor had stuck on a special effect, a sound effect, off spitting.

So I said, all right, let's shift it, let's sync it up, let's sync up the three frames, and let's double the sound effect. And then we put it out and it got a huge laugh. So it's interesting, you know, in comedy, some of it is about the clarity of the punchline. You know, people talk about delivery or timing, but it's really, and again, I know nothing about psychology, but it seems to me that, you know, often a joke. because you're heading in one direction, and at the last moment, you head that way,

and the brain is expecting it to go that way, and that kind of angle is the size of the laugh. This is sounding fucking boring, isn't it? You thought it was all just going to be dicks and things of what's been up my bottom. Yeah, so anyway, we call that the double reveal, that basically the brain, Jesus Christ, this is all I'm going to talk about.

I'm talking about frames tonight. Yeah, frame by frame. What we worked out was that the brain is hearing a noise, spitting, and it can't see what's going on. So the brain is so sensitive as to be aware of, you know, minuscule differences. Yeah, wow. Can we delete that from the streaming? So let's back up a little bit. Let me talk about the set design.

I know. You are all set design. You're all editors, right? Yeah. Well, let's talk about acting. All actors. Yeah, this is a room of actors. It's a tough job.

Come on. Give us some respect. So this is quite an acting feat for you in the show. You play six totally new characters with heavy prosthetics in a lot of cases. What was that process like? In every case, what are you trying to say? The hell are you trying to say that? In varying degrees.

The conspiracy theorist. What was that process like of starting from scratch and saying, okay, we're going to create all these new characters? Okay. Basically, what happened was after Bruno, I vowed never to make this kind of comedy again. I actually vowed it to my wife because it had become so dangerous. There were a bunch of scenes where I was lucky to get away without being really badly injured. You know, you get addicted to it at the time, but at the end, it seemed like an idiotic way to make a living.

And, I mean, for a year afterwards, whenever I heard a police siren, I'm, but you go, oh no, they're there to protect you, not arrest it. So then I'd vowed never to do that style of comedy again, and then something happened, a guy called Donald Trump. I don't know if you heard of him. He got into office, and on the, I think it was like a couple of Sundays in, or a couple of Saturdays in, he introduced something called the Muslim ban or the immigration restriction thing, whatever they called it.

I was like, okay, I am very, very angry. I have to do something about this. And the only thing I knew how to do was actually to go undercover again. So I set myself an acting challenge. I decided for 10 weeks, every week, I would start the week and start writing a character and come up with a voice and a physicality and a body shape and an entire backstory for that character. And then by the end of the week, I would film a full day. with three real people.

And the challenge would be, could I convince these three real people that that person was real that they were speaking to? So I did that 10 weeks in a row, and I didn't put any pressure on myself. I was like, you know, can I do it? You know, the characters don't have to be good. If they succeed, you know,

then let's decide if I want to proceed with any of them. Were there ones that didn't succeed, that you didn't make it in the show or that you didn't bring out in the world? And what was the sort of, reason why one would, do you think, would succeed and one wouldn't? I think in the end, some of them were just funny, you know, and it felt at this time putting out a show that was just amusing, even if something were really, really funny, it wasn't enough.

I wanted the characters to be relevant to what was going on in that last year. So characters like Billy Wayne, who's the conspiracy theorist, you know, I wanted to say something about the fact that fake news, you can't even use that term anymore, because Trump has appropriated it, despite being the biggest proponent and spreader affair, which is extremely intelligent, by the way, to actually take the thing that you're most guilty of and use it as a weapon against other people. So these conspiracy theorists, who had suddenly been elevated to the level of proper journalists and were spreading lies

that had actually influenced the election. Things like Pizza Gate, this disgusting allegation that Hillary Clinton had been running a pedophile ring under a pizza parlor, which actually sounded like a good business plan in some countries. So I wanted to say, you know,

so he was looking into that, the idea of, you know, fake news, this misinformation, these lies they had actually swung the election. Then there was Iran Morad. I don't know if you saw him. Iran Morad when I was in the Mossad. I mean not in the Mossad. And the idea of him was to show the level of paranoia

of against Muslims, really, and the extreme sort of Islamophobia that existed. And what you could do to people when they're scared of a particular ethnic group. So could you make somebody so scared of an ethnic group, that they're ready to expose their bare buttocks and charge towards somebody they believe as a terrorist with the belief that their buttocks touching them would turn the terrorist into a homosexual. And the answer, surprisingly, was yes.

ISIS are scared of being seen as homo. You know what it means, Omo? If your buttock touch them, it means they have become a... Homosexual. Now I am going to teach you how to use your battocks to intimidate ISIS. Show me the battock. No, trousers down. Okay, go. America!

Good, one more time, but louder with America. America! Good. We say in the Mossad, I mean not in the Mossad. If you want to win, you show some skin. Okay. Okay, show it to me. Now, try it to me.

to touch me. I'll touch you. I'll touch you with my back. I'll touch you. You better drop the gun or I'll touch you. USA! And that particular lawmaker had to resign

after that episode. Well, the amazing thing, and this guy, Jason Spencer, who, you know, his claim to fame was he had threatened an African-American person in the Congress there with being drowned in a swamp nearby. So this was, you know, he's not your characteristically.

He's got a nice guy. So in that interview, he dropped his buttocks. Sorry, he had not dropped his buttocks. That was me. That was a fancy who I was wearing. He'd exposed his buttocks. He'd taken up skirt photos. He'd screamed the N-word four times.

And he didn't resign. That was the amazing thing. It took him 72 hours to resign. So I think that that's indicative of the political culture that we have now, With the highest office in the land, you have a man who doesn't exhibit any of the characteristics that we would associate with the president. And that filters down, you know, it trickles down. And so other politicians think, oh, I can get away with screaming the N-word. I can get away with doing anything.

I think you also deserve a little bit of credit for getting Dana Rohrbacher out of office in California. He was in the kindergarten bit. Dana Roarback, I mean, it was interesting. There was a school shooting on the day that we'd shot with him. And he was behind this kindergarten's program of giving three-year-old's machine guns to defend themselves against terrorists. And I particularly wanted to go after him because there had been an allegation by a senior Republican that the only two people to have accepted money from the Kremlin were Rawbacker and Trump. And in fact, Rawback supposedly actually had a codename in the Kremlin. So he was a huge NRA guy and, you know, essentially, allegedly, a Russian asset.

So I was very glad to have been using the campaign against him. And I believe his opponent used a clip from the show and some attack ads. So that that helped, I think. So I was very honored that that was happening. I was just doing a little bit. In that segment in particular, which I think is just one of the most powerful pieces of television that's come out in the past year. You mean in the last hundred years? A hundred years. That's what I meant. The last hundred years.

Typo. But I thought it was really interesting that you also chose to include the clip of Matt Gates, who won't endorse it, kind of to show that there are people who won't just say whatever you put in front of them. Is that why you wanted to include that? Yes, I think what we wanted to show was there's a choice, you know, so you can stay in the room and listen to a conspiracy theorist talk nonsense, or you can get up and say, I'm not putting up with this and I'm leaving. You know, there's a choice to say, yeah, I'm going to, you know, agree with this disgraceful scheme, or you can say, you know what, that's absurd. And I think that's what we all have to remember, you know, which is this idea of complicity. We're all complicit until we say, no. You know, so that was an important thing to say, you know, Republicans do have a choice, you know, and, you know, people who support, even people who support, fully support the Second Amendment, also have a choice of how far they'll push it. So we mentioned that a lot of the, you know, or several of the people that you interview in the show did come out ahead of time and sort of break the news that they were going to be involved. One who didn't, who was definitely a big surprise when it aired in the finale, was O.J. Simpson.

It was a fun that there was this one last big surprise. So were you happy about that? That was not revealed until it aired? Yeah, I mean, in the end, I sort of hid it in the post-credit sequence, the O.J. Simpson thing. So it was a little Easter egg. And the aim of the O.J. Simpson piece was that final episode is really about murder. He's allegedly a murder.

I can't say publicly his murder. But the first half of the episode is set in the Women's March. And there is a kind of alt-right conspiracy theorist who in the end, Eramoran Rudd trains up to murder three liberals at the Women's March. And in the end, he agrees to actually, he thinks that he believes that he has murdered three people. And it was really interesting because this guy was, you know, rational. He was sane. And but within 48 hours, I had turned him into a terrorist. And I think that goes back to the first point.

which is that in a society where conspiracy theories are being spread, when people believe those conspiracy theories, they can do awful things. So I think it was Voltaire said something about, you know, to get people to do evil things, they first have to believe evil things. Something like that, I've completely misquited him. But this person believed that these women were members of Antifa, or the people who opposed fascist groups or as they've termed themselves the alt-right.

And he believed that they were so dangerous because he'd sort of subscribed to those conspiracy theories that they had to be stopped, that they were terrorist groups. And in fact, the president at Charlottesville had said, you know, there were equally bad people on both sides. So my point was, if you believe the conspiracy theory, if you believe that people who stand up,

against neo-Nazis in the street and demonstrate are terrorists, then it's actually logical to go out, defend your country and murder those terrorists. So the dangerous thing is actually the spreading of these racist conspiracy theories. And it's not just Trump. Obviously, you have, you know, social media, you have the internet,

which allows, you know, the spread of those theories without any kind of checking. And obviously then we had O.J. Simpson. So OJ Simpson, the idea was I'd got a little cocky. This was the last thing I'd done on the show. I was like, you know, I'd got a guy to get his buttocks out, I'd interviewed a vice president.

I was like, can I get O.J. Simpson to confess to murder? And so I thought, firstly, can I even get him in a room? It turned out it was quite easy to get him in a room. How did you get him in the room? Well, he can't leave Vegas, and we lord. him with the promise of a meeting with an Arab Sheikh. We said the Arab Sheikh is going to give you this deal that will be worth a lot of money. You know, it's basically I was in the room going, listen, I represented this Arab Sheikh.

He wants to have a hooker in the room. He's going to be fucking the hooker. And he wants you to tell him while he's doing it how you murdered the two of them. And he said, well, listen, I've got no problem with, you know, being in the room while he's, you know, having sex with the prostitute. But he said, you know, I didn't actually murder anyone. I go, listen, yeah, yeah, yeah, listen, I didn't murder my wife either. You know, you know, she just got sore depressed. She just crawled and put herself in the body bag, put the rocks in and threw herself off the end of the yacht.

So to do that, I mean, I ended up training with one of the main FBI interrogators. And they have a technique for breaking down, you know, criminals and getting them to confess. So within the interview, and it was quite nerve-wracking, I asked him about 45 times whether he had murdered anyone. And he was getting increasingly frustrated. Me and you, we got something in common. We both, how you say, lady killers. You know, it's not what it sounds like. In Italian, it translates to somebody who murders women.

No, I killed nobody. Oh, I didn't eat it. I didn't eat that. What I hate about the press is you make one a tiny little sleeve, and that's all they remember you for. Yeah. You're not an OJ the touchdown. You're not OJ the movie star.

You kill two silly people, and suddenly you're a OJ the murderer. No, stop. You want to have some cheese? No, I'm fine. You want to have some jean? Should I hide the knives? Either the knives. OJ is in the town.

No. event like this with Sarah Silverman last week, I reached out to her and said, you know, what should I ask him? And all she said was ask him to tell his Ben Carson story. So, yes, yes, there is a little story about Ben Carson. So you know Dr. Ben Carson, who is in no way a token appointment, you know, it is proof that Trump loves African American people. Because if he didn't, why would he appoint Ben Carson, right? It's proof. It's proof. So we managed to book Ben Carson. So we managed to book Ben Carson and we were going to interview him. I was doing this character called

OMG Whizboy, OMG, WISBOO, OMG. And, which itself, I'll tell you later on about the creation of that character if we have time. So, we book him for this hotel in D.C. called the Mandarin Oriental. I think that's the one anyway.

We get there and there are a secret service everywhere. So it turns out that there is a conference there Condoleezza Rice is there, a bunch of people are there, and there are a secret service throughout the building. And they estimated, we had an ex-secret service guy with us, and he said he thought there were about, you know, 80 to 100 secret service. So I was like, shit, you know, I'm interviewing Ben Carson, he's coming with his own secret service. How do we end up, you know, how do I, you know, get him?

So I had a room nearby the room I was interviewing him in. And I knew who's coming with his own secret service. and so I spoke to my lawyer, I said, what happens if he wants to see my ID? And he goes, well, you have to show me your ID. You know, that's illegal not to show me your ID. He will arrest you. I go, but then if I show my ID,

they'll know it's me and I won't get to interview Ben Carson. And I go, all right, what about, I go, I've got a fake ID. What happens if I give him the fake ID? He goes, then they will arrest you. I go, okay, what happens if I bend over and the fake ID falls on the floor?

And he goes, and they pick it up. And he goes, that might be okay. It's very creative. So I get into the room, the secret service are there, they ask my idea, bend over it, falls down, they pick it up, fine, I walk on, and I get on to, you know, in front of the cameras, Ben Carson's about to walk on, and he's got the press officer from the White House there, and this is the press officer that's been there for many years, and he sees all these shopkins that I've got that, and he goes, why are they, he goes, what are those? I go, do's or shopkins? He goes, I know what they are. Why are their shopkins here? I go, well, I'm going to unbox them with Mr. Ben Carson. And he looks at me, and the guy was smart, and he literally gave one look to the Secret Service.

And Ben Carson's leg was coming in like this, and literally is pulled backwards. He went the other way. Then they alert the rest of the Secret Service that something is going on. And so I hide in this other room. Then we find out the Secret Service are coming. coming to our room. I sneak in and I booked another room upstairs, go to the other room. And then my, again, we had this one guy who's a secret service. He said, the secret service, know you're here, they know sunnings are. They don't know whether it's an attack or something's

going on. And they're looking for you. And believe it or not, some of the secret service were dressed as housekeepers and room service. I was like, the guy said that, I go, I think he's mentally ill. But we actually had some behind the scenes footage of secret service members coming and listening through the door. And so then the secret service are listening outside and you go, I go, okay, we need to exit the building. So we have an escape route.

The escape route is back around the back of the building through the garbage. And the scooter guard says, don't go through the garbage. They're waiting for you. So I said, well, how do we get out of the building? You know, there's like 80 of these guys.

He goes, this is what we're going to do. We're going to position the getaway car in front of the hotel. She was driving the getaway car, actually. And not my wife. this is my assistant and so the getaway cars in front of the hotel

and he said okay we're going to go out through the lobby and head towards the getaway car he goes you've got 25 feet from the elevator opening to the car and I go what about the secret service there he goes if they come towards you I'm going to

take them down I go where I go what? Why? He goes because that's what I have to do to get you into the car So I go surely that's illegal He goes, no, it's not He goes, so I managed to Someone came to me, he actually didn't take him down

But managed to prevent him get into the car Then we got followed by a police car For about five minutes And they didn't pull us over And so I managed to get away with that Wow It's like a normal acting scene I'm sure you guys do this

Did that tip off the Secret Service To what you were up to Did it affect other plans? So I was in D.C. for three weeks. The first person I interviewed was Bernie Sanders, and actually his team were brilliant. And they felt that something was up. They didn't know what it was.

They called Showtime. They couldn't get a confirmation about the show. They threatened to go to Congress and get a congressional hearing. And so I had to live undercover for three weeks in D.C. Because we knew that if anyone photographed me and Instagrammed it or tweeted that I was there, that I'd be busted. So for three weeks, I didn't use my credit card. I didn't really see any daylight.

And I was going in and out of a hotel room through the back entrances. And yeah, so we managed to interview about 15 guys in D.C. over the next three weeks. Did you try to get anyone in the Trump family on the show? It's not easy to get Donald Trump. And no, no, probably not. I've already got him. I had him years ago with L.E.G.

Yeah, I wanted to ask you about that. So, yeah, we might as well go to that now. Your initial interaction with Donald Trump was in, what, 2003, I believe, as L.E.G. So what do you remember from that experience? So I'd interviewed, you know, academics, Nobel Prize winners, you know, heads of the United Nations. No one had ever kept us waiting before. He kept us waiting for a now and a half. and then I remember just before the interview he shouts, get me the mayor! And it was, I think it was Giuliani at the time.

Of course. And he starts screaming. I remember him, have you fucking! And I was really intimidated. I mean, since I've realized that actually it was probably a complete ruse and he was just doing it too intimidating to us.

Then he comes into the room and there's a very sort of Oxford educated, blonde director that we had. He thought he was the guy interviewing him. And then, I got introduced and I was there's a now, what's up? What's up my man? Big up

yourself, easy in our respect. And he took, big up the big don, big up yourself. We're kidding. So let's make the gold eye. And he looked to me and he did not want to sit down with me

and he immediately said let's make this quick. And so he stayed about eight minutes, which is pretty good because I was talking complete nonsense to him. I was pitching him a business scheme where he would invest $100 million in making ice cream gloves, which you could wear when you were eating ice cream and it would stop the ice cream dripping onto your shirt. What does everyone like? Ice cream. What does he do? It drips? Wicked. So what is my idea?

He goes, non-dripping ice cream? What? That is a fucking brilliant idea. No, no, no, no, it's the ice cream glove. I've got some business idea that I'll just want to tell you about, and I'll be a fool if very quickly. What is the most popular thing in the world? Music.

No. Tell me. Ice cream. Okay. Everyone has it. And what is the problem with ice cream? I have no idea. It drips.

Okay. So me idea is what? To make a drip-proof ice cream. No. Brilliant idea of this. All right, whatever. You ain't going to come out with that, though. No, I promise you I won't.

Well, my idea is to come out with just like these ice cream gloves that make the ice cream not go on your hands and make it all well sticky. And also keep your hands warm when you is eating the ice cream. Okay. Is you win or is you win? Okay, well, it sounds like a good idea, and I hope you make a lot of money. Good luck, folks. It's been nice seeing you.

You take care of yourself, okay? If you're going to be in on that? Well, it sounds like an interesting... We've got that P. Diddy is going to be in it. Good. And basically, during the interview, I asked him, because later on he came out and goes, I was the one person. I was the one person who saw through this.

You know, I got out immediately, and it got on. My question is, if he saw that it was fake, why would he have claimed, as he did, that human beings have been trading in rocks for millions of years? Because I asked him, I go, you know, how long as people have been doing business? And he said, well, human beings have been trading in rocks for millions of years. Now, the actual answer is human beings have been trading in salt somewhere between kind of, you know, three to 10,000 years. It was a foolish thing to say. So it seems hard to believe that it was intentional.

And then that led a few years later in Borat There's a scene where you're defecating in the garden of Trump Tower Was that kind of... Yes, that is correct, that is correct. Is that a kind of payback for what happened with the original? Well, not a payback, I just always knew he'd amount to great things. I always had faith in him. So I thought I should defecate in front of his tower.

And then actually in another movie, he ends up controlling. contracting HIV as well, which is now completely curable, which is fantastic. So I don't see why he was upset by that. Coming up, Sasha reveals the unlikely part he played in breaking up Pamela Anderson and Kid Rock. Seriously. So speaking of Borat, I actually watched it for probably the 15th or 20th time today before this interview. And it's just as great as ever. And I think, you know, for me and for a lot of people,

the hardest time that I've ever laughed in a movie theater is that naked fight scene, which I don't know what it is about it, but it just brings out something in people. What do you remember from filming that particular part of the movie? I've blanked it all out. Now, I remember basically, I wrote it with a couple of brilliant writers, Peter Bainham and Dan Mays and Anne Hines. and I wrote it with me sitting on his face

and then we got into the room and we're like, the director Larry Charles said, actually it's funny if he sits on your face and I go, no, no, no, no, no, no, is it? Read the script, Larry, in the script, I sit on his face. So anyway, Ken DeVishian, a fantastic actor, was, you know, he's a big guy.

He's a big guy. And so I was scared that I would not be able to breathe underneath because his buttocks was so big. It's like when you kill someone with a pillow. His buttocks were enough to cover my entire face and create a seal around. So I had a certain amount of seconds

and I said to Larry Charles I go, okay, here's the code which is if I tap the bed, tap the mattress three times, that means I'm out of oxygen and you pull it, you shout cut, and you rip him off. Anyway, when you see the actual scene, you see me

banging three times and they do nothing. And I did, I mentioned this one's full, but I did at that point, I realized I had two choices. Either I could die or I could suck the air that had been stuck up by COSA. And in that moment, I chose to die. So the climax of that movie is the Pamela Anderson kidnapping scene. which there's been a long debate over whether she was in on it or not. So do you want to clear that up for everyone now? Was Pamela Anderson in on that moment?

So she was the only person in on that movie. Yes. She was, I think, otherwise it would have been kidnapping. Right, right. And we did that scene twice, actually. The first time we did a book signing and I grabbed her over my shoulder and ran out with her and no one did anything. I was like, what kind of fans are these? So we did it again, and they started running off to me.

And I turned, and I didn't realize, but she actually clipped her jaw. And she's actually amazingly brave. She lost a tiny bit of, she lost two things. One, she lost a tiny bit of bone from her jaw, so she should really have gotten a award for that. And secondly, she lost her husband. So my wife is, no? Yeah, it's okay.

So later on Tommy Lee Kid Rock saw the movie And I texted Pamela Anderson And I said how did it go? What did you think? And she texted back, he's getting divorced I was like, why? She goes, the movie And I thought it was a joke But then a few weeks later they got divorced

And they put as reason for divorce Bore Out So it had some casualties Yeah, you can take credit for that too You got Dana Rohrabacher out I think they were a fantastic couple, so it's a chef. Much better than Julian Assange, or who she dated later on. Hello, my name.

Can I make it after someone? My name, Barat, Zagdiev. I'm son of Batembalah Thak deer and Bolt of the Rapist. My former husband of Oksana, Thakir, who was the daughter of Malam Thar Yakpa and both of the rapist. I make this for you. And yes, her name. My name, your name, Pamela Anderson.

Borat Sarkdieu, this is today's day. This is today's date, that wedding. This inside is a joke. Pamela, will you marry me? Oh, no, thank you. Sorry. No, agreement not necessary. So, you've said that you don't, you're not making another season of Who is America,

that you think it might be another, you know, decade or so before you could do something like this again. What do you want to do next? I don't, I can't really be bothered to do it. No, I don't know. I mean, the principle has always been to do stuff that I love and that challenges me. And, I mean, originally I didn't, you know,

when I started off in England, I was from, you know, grew up in northwest London. The idea of coming to Hollywood and making movies was impossible. No one had really ever come here since, Sellers, Hugh Grant had had a tiny bit, and then I can't remember what happened to him, something on Hollywood Boulevard. I don't know.

We didn't hear about it in England. And so it was an impossibility. So when I started off, the idea was to actually, my dream was to join this theatre group called Theatre de Complissite, who were kind of physical theatre troupe. So the idea of actually making a TV show and then making a movie and then doing stuff that Americans would,

some of them would like, was literally beyond my wildest dreams. We used to have like a 101-year-old South African woman who used to come around our house for Friday night dinner. And she used to, you know, me and my brother used to perform and sing songs. She would say, you will go to Hollywood one day and they will love you. And we're like, yes, that's right. You know, it seemed completely outlandish. So it's, you know, I don't know, really.

I mean, something has to take my fancy. You are playing an Israeli spy, I believe, in an upcoming Netflix. Not I'm playing, not this Israeli spy. Yeah, I am playing. In a Netflix miniseries, is there anything you can share about that project? I mean, it's completely straight. It's a true story, six part, about this Egyptian, Jew who emigrates to Israel. He's working as an accountant in a supermarket,

a true story, and the Mossad pick him and to give him a cover as a multi-millionaire and he gets sent into Syria alone and becomes the deputy defense minister. So I thought it was quite an interesting story and ended up in Morocco for four months shooting out. I am curious. There are no jokes. in it. Just warning. For a long time, you were going to be playing Freddie Mercury. And I do make love in it.

Oh. And as somebody can attest here, it is not a pretty sight. Not a pretty sight. I did say to the director, actually, I go, I love the script.

I go, but there is actually a sex scene in there. And you are aware that you're shooting with me. And is your aim to get the audience laughing? And he's like, no, I really want this to be really, you know, erotic. I go, no, no, no, that's never, that's never going to happen. If you want belly laughs, get me naked. Anyway, choose for yourself, I mean, it's. And you already shot that?

We've shot that. And how did it go? It was, you know what happened was, I was, while I was shooting this show in Morocco, I was re-editing this show here. And so actually in the middle of the sexy, in between takes, I was getting up and re-editing stuff with the editor. So it was hard because my co-style was like a method actress. My husband, I love you.

I think, one, one minute. And then go and like, okay, just go back three frames. Okay, if we just put that word there, and action. So I feel sorry for her. I mean, it was not fair. Another acting job that you were going to do but didn't end up doing was Freddie Mercury that was long rumored. and obviously now Rami Malik won the Oscar this past year for that role.

And well deserved as well. He did a brilliant performance. Did you get to see it? And how are you feeling about that whole thing now? Well, I'm very glad for Rami. And I talked about this on Howard Stern extensively, so I won't go over it all here. But, you know, ultimately, I'm glad for Queen because it was the movie that they wanted to make. It was not the movie that I wanted to make.

and so I'm very happy for them that they realize their dream. Great. So we're going to read some audience questions. So this is about the process of creating new characters, which we kind of touched on, but it also says, who do you trust for notes and feedback when you're creating new characters? So I'll also go, because I mean you're actor, so, you know, what you have to do is obviously create a character and it to be believable. So I think, you know, I find it really, really hard.

and, you know, that might be, I think that's the struggle we all have and can we put it off. My way in to a character is firstly through the words. So, you know, it's like they say, if it's not on the page, it's not on the stage. If you don't have the words, create the character, in my opinion,

and the specificity of those words and the language and the syntax tell you everything about the character. So when I create a character, So the first thing I do, and I'm with, you know, a couple of people in the room is we write the funny lines. We're asking questions. Then I actually create a separate document, which is, what do those jokes tell us about the character? You know, so, for example, with Ali G, there was a line I wrote, you know, when is it legal to murder someone?

So we got to laugh with that. And you go, okay, so, you know, oxymorons are amusing for him, you know. And, you know, you create the character through those lines that are amusing. Then there is obviously the accent, and sometimes that was kind of really, really last minute. So I was working with probably the greatest dialect coach in the world, a guy called Tim Monick, who I'd met on the set of Hugo with Martin Scorsese. and he does all Tarantino stuff, he's fantastic. And something like Billy Wayne, the conspiracy theorist,

I only managed to get Tim a few hours before going into my first interview. So there's a real person who's waiting there who I have to convince them real. And I say, okay, where do you want him to be from? And I was like, okay, I want him to be from East Tennessee. And then he would teach me, you know, would go through the script and I'd go through, you know, how exactly to pronounce it. and then just stay in the voice. So obviously it was terrifying because, you know,

you're coming into a room and you have to convince them that you are real. And there's the added problem, which is that your face is made of silicon. We actually did one sketch with, he was called McCutcheon. He took on the Supreme Court. He was the guy took on the Supreme Court

to try and have unlimited campaign financing. I managed to get him to prepare and turn his, little office cubicle into a mosque in 30 seconds so he could prepare against any kind of ISIS attackers and during the interview it was in a very very hot room the cameraman looks at me and he gives me the signal that meant I had to go out the room I go out the room and the makeup guy's there and he goes I go what's the problem and he goes you have three ears and I look in the mirror and this ear has become horizontal um So it's become a result so you can see one, two, three ears.

And somehow this guy, who was an intelligent man, had not noticed that the man who was talking to had three years. So you have the challenges of physicality. Also, the other challenge with this, which I think is great, is that you want to be able to, we call it to become sort of locked in to a character, which means once I'm in, I'm in, and you want it to be imperceptible for somebody to see through the character. And it's obviously hard. You've got a silicon face. You're, you know, faking everything.

And so what I do is I try and learn as much backstory as possible. So, you know, where did you come in? What hotel are you staying at? Tell me about your childhood. Your first wife. You know, we had one situation where Vice President Dick Cheney came in. And I was wearing an Israeli Army uniform. And I realized about half an hour before.

And he's going to ask me about my army service. So we had a guy with us who was, we were doing that kindergarten section. And we were actually, he was a weapons expert, an Israeli weapons expert. He'd done some operations there. And we were carrying around, I mean, we had a truck that we were taking around DC with machine guns in and rocket launchers. Actually, at one point we got stopped by the Secret Service about a half a mile away from the Congress. And they opened up the back. They saw all the weapons, checked us, and they're like, fine, you know, move on. And so, you know, I realized Dick Cheney's coming in. He's an intelligent guy. And so I said to this guy, I go, listen, tell me about your military

service. And he goes, he goes what? How much? I go everything from the beginning. He goes, when I was seven years old, I went to school, I had a lunchbox in one end, and a gas mask in the other. And that's when I knew I wanted to be a soldier. And he takes me through all his military service for half an hour. Dick Cheney comes in and he says, all right, before we start the interview, who's interviewing me, sees me. He goes, soldier. come with me. And we sit down and he decides to grill me. And he goes, soldier, tell me about your military service. I go vice president, Cheny, when I was seven years old, I went to school with the lunchbox in one end and the gas mask in the other. And then I went through the entire

military history and it was true and so he believed it. Was there ever a moment during the filming of the whole show where someone recognized you as Sasha Baron Cohen? There were, not really. Not really. I mean, we had, there was one thing in the Mega Mosque. I don't, was the Mega Mosque here today?

I mean, the Mega Mosque was a bit of challenge because one person recognized me. We had, but with that scene, we had some actually bigger issues where, where the security guard and he said, listen, I don't want you to worry about today because if somebody pulls out gun and they'd go to shoot you,

then I've prepared this. I go, what is it? And he pulls out a gun. clipboard and he goes, this is completely bulletproof. He goes, you just hold it in front of yourself, somebody goes with a gun and you just put it in front of yourself. I go, that's great, but I go, it's this

big. I go, what do I put it over? He goes, I don't know. I was like, do I put it over my head? You know, my heart, in the end, I just I was like, I'll do it over my ball. My most valuable possession. I realized actually, if I stood like this, I could actually,

I could actually protect me. But it was, yeah, we realized there was a kind of issue in that scene where, again, you know, so you're trying to get the scene, you're trying to be imperceptible, you're trying to be, you know,

completely immerse yourself in character. And there was a problem that everyone had guns. So the first group of people we brought in, we asked them to leave their guns, we took their guns off the coach. And so they didn't bring in guns. And then the, but the second group, they had their cars parked outside,

and we knew a lot of them had guns in the car. scared that, they would go outside and get their guns and bring the guns back in. And the first time we did it, one of the people said, listen, you know, now I know why you took our guns away from us. I said, why? He goes, we were going to use them against you. And so what we were concerned about the second time was that it would be a kind of inverse mass shooting where you'd have 47 shooters and one victim. And so everyone in the crew, I basically said, okay, you know, what we're going to do is it's going to be the opposite. We're going to have an opt-in program

where you are choosing now to stay and everyone else has to go because, you know, we were aware that it could turn into kind of the okay corral. But luckily it was fine, and I'm here. And that's why I don't want to do it again. Well, sadly, I think we have to wrap up. Just one quick thing before we go,

I like to ask at the end of interviews of comedians, What's the last thing that made you laugh? Could be a recommendation of a TV show or a movie or just something that you've seen. Oh, I saw something hilarious called Fleabag. Has anybody seen that? It's on Amazon. Wow, you've always seen it.

I think she's fantastic. I think it's incredibly original, completely real, and yeah, it really made me laugh. I just called her up to say how funny she was. And she said, who the fuck are you? All right, well, with that, thank you so much. Thank you, Matt. Thank you very much.

Hey, this is Matt Wilstein from The Last Laugh. Thanks so much to Molly and Rick for sharing my conversation with Sasha Baron Cohen, which was recorded in front of a live audience last year at the SAG After a Foundation. If you want to hear more great interviews with some of the best comedians out there, please subscribe to my podcast, The Last Laugh, wherever you get your podcast. Hope to see you soon. Want more great listens? Check out our comedy podcast, The Last Laugh,

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