Celebrity Biographies
Sacha Baron Cohen
He transforms into different characters, with grotesque appearances and accents of all kinds, unfortunately almost always at the service of rude comedies. But what a good vassal when he has a good lord, like Martin Scorsese, Tim Burton or Aaron Sorkin. It must be recognized that he has his own style, marked because he interacts with unsuspecting people on the street, whom he almost always annoys. Sacha Baron Cohen adds stalwarts who laugh at his jokes, but also a multitude of people who can’t stand him.
Born on October 13, 1971, Londoner Sacha Noam Baron Cohen belongs to a Jewish family, which allows him to make anti-Semitic jokes – controversial for excessive cruelty, and he has even been sued for them. His mother, who ran a clothing store on Piccadilly in London, was from Wales, while his mother was from Israel. As a young man he noticed Peter Sellers, who became his idol (although he does not seem to have paid attention to the fact that his illustrious compatriot starred in subtle comedies). Posh boy who went to paying schools, he had to play hooky when the teacher mentioned the obligation to “laugh with people, not at others”. “Not everyone shares my humor,” she has declared. “As a child he already made slightly wild jokes that only made me and my brother laugh.” He also has a coconut, as he studied History at Cambridge, with a good academic record.
Upon leaving college, Sacha Baron Cohenit was clear that he wanted to succeed in comedy. He created the young slum Ali G for the British television program “The Eleven O’Clock Show”, on Channel 4, in 1998. In his section he requested interviews with celebrities whom he overwhelmed with his foul language and bad manners, so He always achieved his goal: that they would end up hating him because he passed three towns. Already at that time he left the then businessman Donald Trump baffled, starting a rivalry that has continued while he was president of the United States. It became so popular that even Madonna recruited Ali G for her “Music” video clip, where he drove the pop star’s limousine and DJed at the disco. Later, his other two best-known characters would arrive, Bruno, an Austrian dressmaker, and Borat, a journalist from Kazakhstan.
Few people imagine that Sacha Baron Cohen made his big screen debut with The Jolly Boys’ Last Stand , a drama where he shared the screen with Andy Serkis . As the protagonist and screenwriter, he revalidated his success on the small screen with the unclassifiable Ali G on the loose , from 2002, where the character was running for election as representative of his neighborhood in the Local Council. It was followed by the film that established him worldwide, Borat –for which he won an Oscar nomination for the adapted screenplay– followed by Brüno ,like the previous one, it is not suitable for sensitive viewers, due to its accumulation of scatological humor. He complains that Hollywood hinders him (who would know that by watching the crap in his movies?). ““If you want to take a risk, the place is television. Hollywood has lost its sense of humor, ”he declared in 2016. “Studios are increasingly reluctant to bet on something. They are in the hands of big corporations and their only goal is to make a profit. But you cannot make humor for the common denominator, so that they do not misunderstand you, to avoid controversy ”.
Despite everything, some of the greats noticed the talent of Sacha Baron Cohen . Martin Scorsese turned him into a zany train station inspector, obsessed with catching the protagonist in The Invention of Hugo . He was prominent in the musical, as Monsieur Thénardier, innkeeper in Tom Hooper’s Les Miserables , and as Pirelli, rival barber to the lead in Tim Burton’s Sweeney Todd : The Demon Barber of Fleet Street . He was about to give life to Freddie Mercury, who looks like a photocopy, in Bohemian Rhapsody , when he was going to direct it Stephen Frears. But this one kicked him out. “Sacha Baron Cohen wanted to make a scandalous movie. Scandalous when it comes to his homosexuality and scandalous when it comes to endless nude scenes ”, recalled Frears, who in the end also left the project in the hands of Bryan Singer.
In 2010, Sacha Baron Cohen married the also actress Isla Fisher, with an opposite character, because she is quite modest. Perhaps because they are polar opposites, things have gone well for them, and they have had three children. In 2015, the couple donated almost one million euros to the NGO Save the Children to help Syrian refugees.
In recent times he has combined his own films, such as The Dictator , or Counter- Intelligence Agent , with more serious appearances in Alice Through the Looking Glass , and the series The Spy , where it must be recognized that he did a great job as the Israeli national hero. at the service of Mossad Eli Cohen, with whom he is not related, despite sharing a last name. “He is someone with whom I can identify: he has genuine emotions, he loves his wife, he misses his children and he is living this double life,” said the actor, who surprised the respectable. “From the moment Sacha walked on his way to the set, we all felt like we were seeing him naked on camera for the first time,” she said.Gideon Raff , creator and director of the series.
Aaron Sorkin succeeded in turning him into Abbie Hoffman, activist, co-founder of the Youth International Party, in The Trial of the Chicago 7 , for which he has achieved the feat of being nominated for an Oscar again, this time like actor. It is less understood that in 2021, he will also compete in the Academy Awards as one of the eight screenwriters of Borat Subsequent Moviefilm , sequel to the film about the Kazakh reporter.