Sacha Baron Cohen Speaks!
NPR's Terry Gross talked to Sacha Baron Cohen this week about life before and after BORAT -- the film's two Golden Globe nominations, the difficulty of making future films when he and his characters are now so popular and recognized in the U.S. Though there's little talk about the lawsuits filed by people saying they were duped or hurt by appearing in the film, Gross and Baron Cohen do talk about the way that his characters get at the thinly veiled bigotry, anti-Semitism, and homophobia of the people he meets.
There's one very interesting question from Gross about the difference between Baron Cohen, who's Jewish, playing a character (Borat) who says horrible, ridiculous anti-Semitic things, and Baron Cohen, who is straight, playing the character Bruno, the flamboyantly gay fashion reporter for Austrian TV.
"Well, I'm not gay," says Baron Cohen. "But I have had a another man's testicles lying on my chest, so make of that what you will." Referring, of course, to the the prolonged naked wrestling scene between Borat and his producer. He also points out that the fey, foreign Bruno is often treated cruelly both in and out of the fashion world. "It seems like homophobia is the last taboo."
Listen to the entire interview at NPR's website for Fresh Air, Gross's weekday interview program.