What is Sacha Baron Cohen up to?
As of Saturday, July 7, the Borat star has deleted all of his tweets, save one involving President Donald Trump (more on that in a sec), and around the same time, U.S. channel Showtime released two teaser videos so cloaked in mystery that it’s hard to even tell Cohen’s involved. And yet, it seems Cohen’s prints are all over it. What’s the deal?
Let’s start with the Trump-focused tweet Cohen posted on July 4. It’s the only one that currently lives on Cohen’s Twitter timeline (we’re unsure when he deleted the rest of his Twitter history) and it’s styled to look like a personal message from Trump. You’d expect the video to be July 4-related — because that’s Independence Day in the U.S. — but instead, the footage shows Trump calling out Cohen and telling him to take some acting lessons. Cohen’s caption for the video is fairly lowkey — “A message from your President @realDonaldTrump on Independence Day” — but it feels like something bigger is happening here, especially since the video ends with “Sacha graduates soon”, likely in reference to Trump’s demand about those acting lessons.
What could have been written off as the actor just trolling Trump is actually more elaborate thanks to those teasers for Cohen’s show posted by Showtime. The teaser features a voiceover telling viewers that “something huge is coming” to the channel but that they can’t talk about it, or reveal the title because of a non-disclosure agreement, or even tell viewers who the star of the show is because the lawyers won't allow it.
Another similarly-styled teaser calls the show’s star “shameless,” “unhinged,” and “cold-blooded," comparing him to characters from other Showtime series, including Shameless, Dexter, and Homeland. The adjectives definitely fit the bill when thinking about the Cohen’s antics in films like Ali G Indahouse, Borat, and Brüno, but it makes you wonder: What is actually going to happen in Cohen's next TV outing?
Deadline reports that Cohen will likely be bringing a talk show in the vein of Da Ali G Show to Showtime, but any specifics about the project are unknown. Will Cohen be playing a cartoonish version of Trump? Someone connected to Trump? A totally random character that these Trump-related promos don’t even relate to? Who’s to say — but consider our interest piqued.
