Sacha Baron Cohen at the London premiere of Grimsby, February 2016. Photo: WireImage
There's an old saying in show business: Never work with children or animals.» In the case of actress Rebel Wilson, there may be a third category: «Never work with Sacha Baron Cohen.» Wilson, who co-starred with Baron Cohen in the 2016 action-comedy Grimsby (retitled The Brothers Grimsby in the US), has dedicated part (Chapter 23, to be exact) of her upcoming memoir, Rising Uprising, to detailing the struggles she faced collided. claims she had to deal with working with the actor and comedian, whom she describes in the book as a «huge asshole.»
Wilson recently said on Instagram: «Want to know why I now have a 'no assholes' policy with the people I work with? Well, it's all in the book… Because I worked with a huge asshole.» She initially kept the aforementioned moron's identity anonymous, saying only that she «said the moron is trying to threaten me… he's trying to stop the press from writing about my book.» But in a recent Instagram story, she said: «I will not be bullied or silenced by expensive lawyers or PR crisis managers… the 'hole' I talk about in ONE CHAPTER of my book is Sacha Baron Cohen.»
A spokesman for Baron Cohen denied Wilson's allegations, telling the Hollywood Reporter: «While we understand the significance of the statements, these patently false allegations are directly contradicted by extensive, detailed evidence, including contemporaneous documents, videotapes and eyewitness accounts from those present at the hearing. before, during and after the production of The Brothers Grimsby.
Mark Strong, Rebel Wilson and Sacha Baron Cohen in the film Grimsby Photo: Alamy
But there is already a form between them. Wilson played a supporting role in the film as Baron Cohen's character's girlfriend Dawn; it wasn't a difficult role, but according to an interview she gave to a radio show in 2014, the circumstances surrounding her filming were certainly challenging.
Calling Baron Cohen «outrageous», she revealed that he unsuccessfully forced her to strip naked on screen, comparing her appearance to his notorious nude scene in Borat, and then, in their last scene together, asked her to do the outrageous act: or as she described it: «He was like, 'Look, I'll just take my pants off and you just put your finger up my ass, it'll be really funny.' Wilson refused and the scene began. there was a tamer — and more enjoyable — version on screen where she simply spanked her co-star.
If this creative tension were to make a worthwhile film, it might be justifiable from an artistic point of view, if not from a personal one. Still, Grimsby is one of the most baffling artistic and commercial failures of the last decade, a big-budget action comedy that sought to combine the cracking humor that brought Baron Cohen to fame with impressively mounted set pieces courtesy of future directors. Fast X directed by Louis Leterrier.
If it worked, it could correct the conventional wisdom that action comedies often stutter box office, but the sheer nastiness of much of its comedy meant that it was greeted with a mixture of confusion by both audiences and critics. and confusion.
The idea of the film in itself was not bad. The script, co-written by Baron Cohen, his frequent collaborator Peter Baynham and Wreck-it Ralph creator Phil Johnson, centers on the relationship between Sebastian Graves, a Bond-esque MI6 agent, and his moronic football hooligan brother Nobby Butcher. After a series of strange events (one of which involves Daniel Radcliffe being infected with AIDS-tainted blood), the two brothers are forced to go on the run together and uncover an intricate plot in which Penelope Cruz tries her best to throw him into the slums. an actress turned megalomaniac who wants to poison the world with a deadly virus.
Among many other unpleasantries, there is also a scene in which two brothers take refuge in an elephant's vagina only to be soaked in cum while the other animals repeatedly have sex with her. If this had happened in an obscure European feature film, it might now be seen as some kind of post-modern cinematic marvel, but instead, for the few who paid to see Grimsby, it was seen as a moment of great bewilderment.
Sacha Baron Cohen with director Louis Leterrier on the set of the film «Grimsby»
However, this was not the reaction that the film's co-producers, Sony Pictures and Britain's Work Title Films, expected from the film. Baron Cohen achieved massive success with his Borat and Bruno films, and 2012's equally merciless dark comic satire The Dictator grossed $180 million worldwide, helping establish the performer as a versatile comedian to be ranked alongside his idol Peter Sellers as a man who was both commercially popular and fearless innovator.
When the project was proposed to Sony, the studio's international subsidiaries greeted it with great enthusiasm; A typical comment was that it was «a much raunchier, grosser, dirtier and funnier take on a spy parody» than usual, and one executive raved about the script: «I hadn't laughed out loud reading it for years until I read This. «The original budget was a substantial one of $65 million: a similar amount to The Dictator.
However, even in the early stages, doubts arose. Thanks to leaked Sony emails, the production can be traced from enthusiasm to caution and ultimately to major disappointment. Eric Fellner, co-chairman of Working Title, wrote to Sony's Amy Pascal in February 2014, saying, «While I adore the SBC, it is difficult to control both creatively and financially.» Baron Cohen has made it clear that he, as the star-writer, will be making the final cut of the film, not the director or producers, and that he will exercise «the right to appoint co-stars.»
“Spoiled schoolboy from the south, kicking the north”: Sacha Baron Cohen in Grimsby
As for Sebastian, whose suaveness is undermined by the mixture of humiliating and degrading situations in which he is involved — including, at one point, Nobby having to suck the poison out of one of his testicles — Baron Cohen has compiled an A and B list of actors. whom he considered acceptable for the role opposite him. The A-list included such established and star-studded figures as Tom Hardy, Christian Bale and Hugh Jackman, none of whom saw playing second fiddle to a comedian as a particularly tempting opportunity and therefore turned down the film.
After actors like Eddie Redmayne and Jon Hamm also pulled out, Baron Cohen narrowed the choices down to Clive Owen, Colin Farrell and Guy Pearce. But Owen was rejected by Pascal, partly because he was «too smarmy», and Farrell, who had recently gained weight to appear in Yorgos Lanthimos's absurdist comedy The Lobster, did not look like the model of a suave secret agent. Pearce — Pascal's preferred choice — was about to get the role when, out of nowhere, Mark Strong, a respected character actor who was probably best known for his villainous roles in Kick-Ass and Sherlock Holmes, impressed both Baron Cohen and to the studio. Fellner enthuses that «the two things that SBC likes are the most important… he feels like he can play it well to get the best out of the humor… and that at any moment you think he might kill someone !”
Strong was (and remains) undoubtedly an extremely talented actor, but he is neither an A-list star nor a natural comedian, which seemed to suit Baron Cohen on the grounds that he was in no danger of being relegated to the sidelines. After the budget was quietly cut to around $35 million, the rest of the cast was assembled with Cruise in the role, which Julia Roberts was at one point unsuccessfully courted for, with filming taking place in mid-2014 in Essex (replacing Grimsby) and South Africa.
It has been suggested that the negative image of the Lincolnshire town as a crime-infested hellhole was particularly strongly felt by its residents, one of whom told The Grimsby Telegraph: «The problem I have with the man is that he was welcomed.» to this town and he was treated nice and well, then he leaves and then he shits the town.” There were dark rumors that if Baron Cohen, who was spotted at a football match in the town in October 2013 chatting with locals and visiting pubs, had decided to film in Grimsby itself, he and the cast and crew would not have been safe.
In any case, the picture was made without any major incident, although Strong had the odd experience of alternating broad comedy by day with playing the challenging role of Eddie Carbone in Arthur Miller's A View from the Bridge by night, and it was expected to be highly acclaimed . -profile July 2015 Issue The film was then shown to test audiences, and their puzzled, even horrified responses showed Sony that they didn't have the summer blockbuster they believed in. Therefore, its release was delayed until February 2016, leading industry insiders to believe that the film was destined to bomb.
Baron Cohen, however, was something of a master when it came to publicizing his photographs—who can forget that (staged) moment at the 2009 MTV Movie Awards when, as a fashionista parodying Bruno, he landed on Eminem's face. ? — and the film's delay initially seemed to work in his favor, as he booked high-profile private screenings for the likes of Kim Kardashian.
There's a terrible joke in Grimsby about various luminaries contracting AIDS as a result of exposure to Radcliffe's tainted blood, including Elizabeth II, and the film ends with then-presidential candidate Donald Trump suffering the same fate. Baron Cohen showed up at the film's premiere in Detroit dressed as Nobby, wearing a red Trump-themed hat with the slogan «Make America Great Again.»
Sacha Baron Cohen and Mark Strong in Grimsby Photo: Daniel Smith
He also jokingly declared his support for Trump. “I was captivated by Donald’s rallies,” he said. “It’s like football matches in England: shouting, violence, insults. The only difference is that we don't throw out black people. In fact, Donald — and this is the best thing about him — is a real football hooligan. He will listen thoughtfully to the other side's arguments… and then bash their fucking heads in.»
If Sony was alarmed by their star's behavior, they showed no signs of it, even as Baron Cohen shouted, «People of America, please vote for Donald Julio Trump and let's turn the White House into the Orange House!» However, the film should have included a disclaimer that Trump was not involved in its production and — in typical Baron Cohen style — was not HIV-positive in real life.
However, this was the moment where the comedian's previously confident grip slipped away from him. The film was a box office failure in the United States, grossing just $3 million in its opening weekend, which analysts attributed to a mixture of audience unfamiliarity with small-town British towns and general fatigue with the parody genre. As one studio executive put it, “The movie idea is fun, but in terms of mass consumption, the elements have already been done.”
Marketers shrugged: «We think we've got a really fun movie, but for some reason it didn't take off,» and its failure was blamed on a general ignorance or lack of interest in British football, a crucial plot point. As one commentator noted: “Rule #1 is never, ever make a movie that has football in it. It's like trying to sell MLS tickets to Premier League fans.»
Sacha Baron Cohen in character at the premiere of «Grimsby» in Los Angeles. Photo: Getty
Yet Grimsby achieved little more success in Britain, where he was routinely subject to critical ridicule; Gaby Hinsliffe, writing in the Guardian, wrote that she was «slightly bored, occasionally disgusted and ultimately punished.» Even John Prescott attacked it, calling Baron Cohen a «spoiled southern schoolboy kicking the north» and, perhaps most damningly, comparing him to George Osborne. Both of them, he said, were “a couple of posh southerners patronizing the north to advance their careers.”
One of the few defenders of the law was the Telegraph's Robbie Collin, who called it a «vital, generous, poisonous desecrator of two fingers up on Benefit Street, a pathetic pornographic film and the social division it creates» and declared: «I laughed, winced, choked and then laughed even more.» But even this was not enough to save the film, which died a shameful death at the UK box office.
Most of the cast and crew remained unharmed; Strong remains a highly respected stage and film actor, Leterrier's hiring for the Fast and the Furious franchise shows no hard feelings from Hollywood, and the supporting cast, including Wilson, is going from strength to strength. And even Baron Cohen, perhaps chastened by the reception, has turned to increasingly demanding non-comic roles, such as his appearances in Aaron Sorkin's The Trial of the Chicago 7 and Alfonso Cuaron's upcoming thriller Disclaimer on Apple TV, although he has reprized his character Borat. for the 2020 Trump-baiting sequel, which met with similar acclaim as the original.
Still, Grimsby squats over Baron Cohen's filmography with suitably elephantine awkwardness. Wilson's recent comments about her experience working with him may or may not coincide with other people's opinions about their own experiences working with Baron Cohen on this project. But there can be no doubt that this tawdry, unique and deeply patronizing film will never appeal to a lot of huge assholes or anyone else.
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