Baron Cohen says he won't return to the role

In a rare interview, the comic revealed that his Kazakh journalist has gone the way of the creation that made his name, Ali G.

‘When I was being Ali G and Borat I was in character sometimes 14 hours a day and I came to love them, so admitting I am never going to play them again is quite a sad thing,’ he told today's Daily Telegraph.

‘It is like saying goodbye to a loved one. It is hard, and the problem with success, although it's fantastic, is that every new person who sees the Borat movie is one less person I “get” with Borat again, so it's a kind of self-defeating form, really.

‘It's upsetting, but the success has been great and better than anything I could have dreamed of.’

He also admitted his success had another side-effect. ‘Since last year I've been sued by about 3,000 people,’ he said. ‘Some of the letters I get are quite unusual, like the one where the lawyer informed me I'm about to be sued for $100,000 and at the end says, "PS: Loved the movie. Can you sign a poster for my son Jeremy?"’

Baron Cohen recently finished work on a film revolving around Bruno, the gay Austrian fashionista who first appeared on his Channel 4 TV series. But he refused to be drawn on its content before it is ready for release next year. ‘It would probably hurt the film if I started talking about it, so I prefer to comment once I've got a finished film,’ he said.

Baron Cohen was speaking to promote his role as Pirelli in the new film version of Sweeney Todd, which opens in the UK next month.

Published: 21 Dec 2007