I hope you have about an hour to spend listening to an absolutely great interview Howard Stern conducted with The Dictator star Sacha Baron Cohen earlier today in which Cohen shows up, not in character as he has been doing during all press rounds for his upcoming films, but as Sacha and it is just an excellent listen.
As the headline indicates, he does reveal he had to drop out of what he describes as a “cameo” in Quentin Tarantino‘s Django Unchained, citing The Dictator press tour as the reason for his departure, but that is only a blip on the radar of excellence that follows.
In just the first two parts you’ll hear him discuss working with Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg on “Da Ali G Show”, pitching ideas to Martin Scorsese for Hugo (and imitating Scorsese’s voice), explaining how, contrary to what she says, Paul Abdul willingly sat on a human being as a chair in Bruno, how the Academy threatened Paramount that if Cohen showed up at the Oscars they had 200 FBI agents saying he would be arrested.
As for that Oscar stunt, which eventually say Cohen as the Dictator pouring Kim Jong Il’s ashes all over Ryan Seacrest, the Academy went so far as to call Scorsese and ask him to tell Cohen not to pull any pranks. Then they called his agent and as Cohen puts it, said, “He’ll get banned from Hollywood. He’ll never get nominated for anything.” To which he says, “Once they started threatening I thought, ‘I’ve really got to turn up now.'” He was searched for “live arms” and it just goes on and on and on from there and that’s just the first 20 minutes or so.
I should mention the audio is certainly not safe for the work environment, but if you can find the time, give it a listen and when you’re done, I’ve just added 28 new images from the film to my gallery pages right here.
