Sacha Baron Cohen Says The FBI Started Investigating Him While He Was Filming ‘Borat’

You’d think the FBI would be intelligent enough to realize that a guy, running around the countryside with a blatantly fake accent and a film crew in tow, is most likely not a terrorist. Imagine being an FBI agent and interviewing the guy who sold Borat a car:

Clearly a danger to no one but himself…and maybe some impressionable young lads who just want an ice cream cone.

That’s not to say that the FBI didn’t investigate Sacha Baron Cohen despite his incredulous disguise:

Speaking to Marc Maron on a recent instalment of his WTF Podcast, the Grimsby star explained that the authorities started following him as they were convinced his Kazakh alter ego was involved in terrorism…

‘The FBI got so many complaints there was a terrorist traveling in an ice cream van. It was a couple of years after 9/11,’ Sacha recalled.
‘So they started compiling a little file on us and eventually they came to visit us at the hotel.

He added: ‘I obviously went missing when I heard because they were like “FBI’s downstairs. Sacha, disappear”. Because they didn’t want me to be apprehended.’(via)

Borat went on to gross $128,505,958 domestically on only an $18 mil budget. Since then Sacha hasn’t seemed to be able to reach the same height of success as a leading man – Bruno only managed to make $59,992,760 on a $42 mil budget, whereas The Dictator wound up in the red domestically, with a $65 mil budget and only a $59 mil gross.

You can hear the full interview by clicking HERE.

 

[H/T Metro & WTF Podcast]