Sacha Baron Cohen has told The Daily Telegraph that his alter egos Borat Sagdiyev and Ali G are dead.
He told the site, “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 said. “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.
“It’s upsetting, but the success has been great and better than anything I could have dreamed of.”
For those of you expecting a Borat 2 it looks like your hopes are dashed, however there is still that Bruno feature to look forward to.
On a side note, the interview was, of course, for Sweeney Todd, in which Cohen plays the Italian barber Pirelli. He talks about auditioning for the part and answers a question I was wondering myself with regards to the final note in the song “The Contest”. “When I was at Cambridge University I played Tevye in Fiddler On The Roof and that was the only thing I remembered so I went in and sang If I were A Rich Man for Sondheim,” he said.
“That wasn’t enough so I had to sing about five other songs and luckily Sondheim thought they were okay, but there is one incredibly high note at the end of my piece and Tim Burton doesn’t know this but when I went in to record the sound I couldn’t reach it, even wearing spandex, so I brought in a very fat female opera singer to sing the final note.”
If you are hesitant to go see Sweeney Todd I urge you to give in and check it out, it is fantastic. Here’s my review.
