Sacha Baron Cohen Reportedly Reviving Ali G Character

Sacha Baron Cohen is reportedly returning to the Ali G role that helped make him famous. In a new podcast appearance, Above the Line editor Jeff Sneider revealed that he had heard word of an Ali G projects currently in the works -- although he admitted that Cohen is very good at keeping his people quiet, so there are no details to work on. He believes the project will be a movie, rather than a series, which would put it in line with what Cohen has been doing in recent years, from Ali G InDaHoluse to Borat and its sequel. Cohen's Da Ali G Show created memorable moments by presenting Cohen as Ali G, a pastiche of wealthy, opulent urban culture (think rappers ten years after they've "made it"), who conducted interviews with the wealthy and powerful, often taking them down a peg by putting them in embarrassing situations seemingly without knowledge he was doing so.

The strategy is similar to what Cohen did with his Borat character later: using people's expectations of the situation against them, and presenting a character that many would assume was dumb. Then, pull the rug out from under people, staying in character the whole time so they can't tell if you're actually doing it on purpose.

"Sacha Baron Cohen is bringing back his character, Ali G," Sneider said. "Ive heard Ali G is something that's in the works....They made Borat 2 completely under the radar. I broke the story about Borat 2 and that wasn't until that movie was test screening basically. So it's pretty crazy how under lockdown he has everything, but I have heard there's something happening."

You can see the full conversation below, with the Sasha Baron Cohen talk at around the 5-minute mark.

"I think there's even people in the comments who are like, 'Who's Ali G?'" I do think he can manage to prank a lot of people. I just think we need more comedies in general. This weekend, No Hard Feelings is tracking for a $12 million opening, and that's not going to get Hollywood excited about making more comedies, but it takes people like Sacha Baron Cohen who can go and do their own thing, and don't need permission or whatever."

Da Ali G Show ran for three seasons on Channel 4 and later HBO from 2000 until 2004. In 2002, Cohen made the movie Ali G InDaHouse, which took the character on a bizarre big-screen adventure that included making Ali G a member of Parliament briefly.