Got to sit with Sacha Baron Cohen and his fiancee, “Wedding Crashers'” Isla Fisher, at the Los Angeles Film Critics Association’s awards dinner. A very fun, thoughtful and sweet couple – she was open and chatty from the get-go, he warmed up after he realized that I was the guy who kept asking off-the-wall questions at his Borat press conference a couple of months ago (seems he liked the idea of having someone to play off of at that highly pre-scripted affair, so I guess I can proudly say I was part of a spontaneous Borat routine).
Cordial table conversation was an off-the-record deal (nothing juicy said anyway). But of course, Baron’s acceptance speech – he shared LAFCA’s best actor award with “Last King of Scotland’s” Forest Whitaker – was a scream.
Choice excerpt:
“I would say it is an incredible honor receiving this award,” Cambridge-educated Englishman Cohen said in his rarely heard natural voice. “Various actors who’ve received this in the past have shown incredible commitment to their roles. De Niro put on, I think, 40 pounds for ‘Raging Bull.’ Other actors have pretended to be blind, other actors have shed weight. Tom Cruise even pretended to have sex with Nicole Kidman.
“However, none of them have had to sit under a 300-pound naked man. It was during that time that I thought to myself: I’d better bloody win an award for this!”