I was laughing so hard at Cohen's interview on Stern this morning that I was attracting some funny looks at work. Howard asked him about his funniest interview that never made it on the show, and he told this story:
- He was in character as Borat, the Kazakh TV host, and at some kind of hippy retreat - I think it was in Arizona. The head hippy was trying to get him to relax for some kind of meditation, and Borat kept twitching in typical Borat fashion and saying, "I can't get relaxed."
Eventually the hippy put on some strange music and left the room, telling him "You'd better be relaxed when I come back."
When the guy returned, Borat was frantically masturbating (or at least appeared to be). The guy called the police, who threatened to put him in jail for 2 years, and eventually took the tape.
Cohen said, the entire time, he was debating when he'd break character and tell them who he really was - would he wait until he was in jail, after the trial? As it turned out, he never had to.
He had another great story about having a gun pulled on him when he was in character as the gay Austrian fashion-show host, and trying to figure out how the character would run as he sped away.
That guy is a genius IMO - I like Borat the best, but all his characters are priceless, and I am amazed at how well he stays in character (particularly after drinking about 20 glasses of wine on his wine-tasting trip).