Hold the high fives: In a rare interview out of character, British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen told U.K. newspaper The Telegraph that he has retired Borat, the clueless Kazakh journalist and star of last year's smash hit "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan," owing to the fact that the character has become too popular to fool people.
"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 newspaper. "It is like saying goodbye to a loved one. 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." Rumored to be made for less than $20 million, "Borat" became a cultural phenomenon when it was released in November 2006, earning rave reviews and over $260 million worldwide.
For his part, Baron Cohen nabbed the Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Comedy or Musical. Given the overwhelming success of the character and of the film, it came as little surprise when, last February, News Corporation CEO Rupert Murdoch told a New York audience that his company had already signed Baron Cohen for a "Borat" sequel. That may have been nothing more than wishful thinking, a representative for Twentieth Century Fox — which is owned by News Corp. — told MTV News, insisting that a movie was never officially announced, green-lit or put into development. Baron Cohen is currently starring as Signor Adolfo Pirelli in Tim Burton's "Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street" and hard at work on "Brüno," in which he will play a flamboyant, homosexual, Austrian fashion expert. The film is being shot in a similar style to "Borat." Baron Cohen's personal representatives had no comment at press time.
This report is from MTV News.
"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 newspaper. "It is like saying goodbye to a loved one. 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." Rumored to be made for less than $20 million, "Borat" became a cultural phenomenon when it was released in November 2006, earning rave reviews and over $260 million worldwide.
For his part, Baron Cohen nabbed the Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Comedy or Musical. Given the overwhelming success of the character and of the film, it came as little surprise when, last February, News Corporation CEO Rupert Murdoch told a New York audience that his company had already signed Baron Cohen for a "Borat" sequel. That may have been nothing more than wishful thinking, a representative for Twentieth Century Fox — which is owned by News Corp. — told MTV News, insisting that a movie was never officially announced, green-lit or put into development. Baron Cohen is currently starring as Signor Adolfo Pirelli in Tim Burton's "Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street" and hard at work on "Brüno," in which he will play a flamboyant, homosexual, Austrian fashion expert. The film is being shot in a similar style to "Borat." Baron Cohen's personal representatives had no comment at press time.
This report is from MTV News.
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