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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Entertainment
Stuart Heritage

‘This is not AI’: why oiled-up abs are the least radical thing about Sacha Baron Cohen’s reinvention

‘I really am egotistical enough to do this’ … Men’s Fitness cover model Sacha Baron Cohen.
‘I really am egotistical enough to do this’ … Men’s Fitness cover model Sacha Baron Cohen. Photograph: Simon Needham/mensfitness.co.uk

It is a rite of passage for almost every comic actor working today. You spend years – sometimes even decades – curating a reputation as a happy go lucky, physically anonymous everyman. Then Marvel comes knocking, and you realise that you might have to share a scene with Chris Hemsworth, and next to him you’re going to look like a weedy twig-worm hybrid. The next thing you know, you’re all over the internet, greased up and flexing. Which is a very long way of saying: Borat’s got abs now.

Sacha Baron Cohen is this month’s Men’s Fitness magazine cover model. His pecs are popping. His biceps are bulging. His forearms look like a sack of live snakes. His pants are, conservatively, two and half inches lower than they really should be. His entire torso looks like it’s been rolled around in margarine. He is, to use his own words, “hard launching my mid-life crisis”.

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