Sacha Baron Cohen shot to fame for playing multiple characters like Ali G, Borat and Bruno on television before taking them to the big screen, but with the exception of Showtime satire Who Is America?, the 48 year-old has spent the majority of the last decade tackling more straightforward movie roles.
That being said, he’s hardly been prolific, having only appeared in eight films in the last ten years, and even then that includes a voice-only role in Madagascar 3 and a brief cameo in Anchorman 2. Baron Cohen will next be seen in Aaron Sorkin’s prestige drama The Trial of the Chicago 7, which might lead you to believe that he’d made an effort to branch out from the genre that made his name, especially when you consider that his last attempt at big screen comedy in Grimbsy was largely dismissed by critics and bombed at the box office.
However, Collider is now reporting that the reason Baron Cohen has been so quiet over the last couple of years is that he’s secretly been shooting a Borat sequel, which will presumably be announced in the not-too-distant future. Not only that, but the film has apparently been screened as well.
“Borat 2 has already been shot and even screened for a select few industry types,” says Collider. “According to multiple sources, the sequel finds Borat thinking he’s a big movie star after the success of the original 2006 film made him famous, so he’s trying to hide from the public by pretending to be someone else, and starts meeting/interviewing people incognito. One source described the film as “Cohen playing Borat playing Cohen.”
No doubt, the actor was hoping to get shooting completed without anyone finding out, but he was recently rumbled after being spotted in California last month. It would be a lot harder to make a Borat follow-up these days given the way the character infiltrated popular culture back in 2006 when the movie spawned countless catchphrases and raked in over $260 million at the box office, but having had the police called on him no less than 92 times when making the original, he’s used to suffering for his art when going incognito by this point.
