Sacha Baron Cohen names the biggest regret of his career
Regret doesn’t seem to be a central part of Sacha Baron Cohen. The man who brought Borat, Bruno, and Admiral General Haffaz Aladeen to the screen is famous for his ability to keep his cool in front of real-life people, even as he’s doing disgusting and hilarious actions. That doesn’t leave a lot of room for wistful reflection, but Cohen has clocked some missed opportunities from his days as a performer.
While giving a Reddit AMA promoting his 2016 movie The Brothers Grimsby, a user asked Cohen, “Do you regret doing anything at all that you’ve ever done?” The actor shared a gonzo story about appearing on a talk show with the Australian Prime Minister and a striptease routine that he backed out of last minute.
“There was something that I regret not doing, which was, I was on this Australian late-night talk show, and the talent booker had made a massive mistake,” Cohen revealed. “He booked the Australian Prime Minister on the same talk show. I was doing Bruno, and I had a strip tease routine fully planned, including tearaway pants and this g-string.”
“And my intention was to lap dance the Prime Minister of Australia and stick my crotch in his face. It would have been an international incident and probably would have got me barred from Australia. But, unfortunately, I wimped out of doing it and eventually was also barred by his own security.”
The programme appears to have been ROVE, the Australian television variety show hosted by comedian Rove McManus from 1999 to 2009. At the time of the show’s airing, the Prime Minister of Australia would have been Kevin Rudd. Rudd did indeed appear on ROVE in 2009, but as Cohen explained, he and Rudd never got on screen together.
Although it wasn’t necessarily a regret, Cohen did also share how an infamous scene from Borat nearly cost him his life. While staying in a hotel room, Borat gets in a fight with his producer, Azamat Bagatov. The two tussle while both happen to be naked, eventually spilling out of their shared hotel room and into a convention happening in the hotel’s ballroom.
“The worst part filming Borat was the naked fight because I had a 250lb. man’s ass on my face, and his buttocks was so big that I couldn’t actually breathe when I was underneath there,” Cohen explained. “So, I had about 30 seconds of air under there before I had to breathe in. And I had a signal with the director, which was when I thought I was going to pass out, I would hit the mattress three times.”
“If you look at the Borat film now, you will see that I do hit the mattress three times, and the director didn’t stop filming, which meant I was faced with this very stark choice, which was either to die, or to breathe in the rancid air from my costar’s rectum,” Cohen concluded. “And when I was underneath there, I decided to die. Luckily, my co-star moved off and I managed to finish the scene. Otherwise, that would have been a very inglorious end to my life.”
Check out Bruno’s appearance on ROVE down below.
