The Sacha Baron Cohen scene Rebel Wilson refused to shoot
The British actor Sacha Baron Cohen catapulted to fame in the late 1990s, performing as the satirical fictional character Ali G. His uproarious interviews with celebrities on his mock-up chat show, along with taking to the streets to meet different sections of society, had most of the country in stitches. Cohen’s bling-heavy, rap-loving persona made him a British TV superstar.
However, it was his turn as Borat, the TV reporter working for a Kazakhstan network, in his shocking and hilarious film Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, that put Cohen on the world stage. In a similar vein, Cohen created something comparable with his character Brüno, the gay Austrian TV fashion journalist—an invention that was staggeringly rude, extremely shocking, and brilliantly funny.
With such huge success, fame, and notoriety, it must have become very difficult for Cohen to go undercover and mingle with celebs, politicians, and everyday people as he could before. As a result, Cohen turned his hand to writing a string of purely fictional movies with new characters, such as Aladeen, a ruthless dictator who journeys to New York with the intention of addressing the United Nations Security Council in his 2012 comedy The Dictator.
Cohen clearly tried to channel the hallmarks that had made his other characters so infamous and successful, filling the story with bad language, politically incorrect gags, elaborate set pieces, and nudity. However, not all his fellow cast members were quite as willing to go to Cohen’s extreme lengths.
In 2016, Cohen wrote and starred in his football hooligan spy thriller mash-up, Grimsby. Starring Mark Strong, Isla Fisher, Penelope Cruz, and Rebel Wilson, the movie follows Norman (Cohen), a simple-minded individual from Grimsby, who reconnects with his estranged brother, Sebastian, one of MI6’s most lethal assassins. Together, they find themselves on a mission to prevent an imminent terrorist attack and save the world.
Rebel Wilson plays Norman’s pint-gushing and football-loving partner, Dawn Grobham. However, within the script, Cohen had written that Wilson would have to be nude for some of the scenes, which the actor wasn’t comfortable doing. Despite having a body double on set to portray Wilson’s character, Wilson refused, telling Cohen, “I’m not doing that; I don’t care what you say,” she revealed in Metro.
Unlike Cohen’s earlier films, Grimsby certainly doesn’t have the same comedic intelligence and nuance, and the film relies on pure gross-out shock factor alone to keep audiences entertained, which becomes tiresome quickly. If Wilson’s story is true, it’s probably a good idea she didn’t fall into Grimsby’s juvenile tendencies.
