Isla often talks about the difficulties faced resulting from husband Sacha Baron Cohen’s controversial films, and I just came across this one, in which Sacha recalled how Isla tried to save him when he met a sportsman from Kazakhstan. It’s from an interview Sacha gave on The Howard Stern radio show earlier this year when he was promoting Grimsby… 😆
It’s not secret that Sacha loves to offend people so Howard wanted to know if that ever backfired in his real life.
Sacha told Howard a story how he ran into Olympic gold medalist and former boxing heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko at a restaurant a few years ago. Normally, that wouldn’t be a big deal but Mr. Klitschko is from Kazakhstan, the country Sacha’s Borat character claims as home.
A waiter approached Sacha at the restaurant and told him that Klitschko would love to meet him. Sacha walked over to his table and extended his hand, which Klitschko firmly gripped with no intention of letting go.
Soon Sacha’s wife and fellow actor Isla Fisher came over pretending to be a massive fan and asked for an autograph so Wladimir would release her husband’s hand, but that proved to not work as the former heavyweight pulled Sacha closer and quietly told him: “You humiliated my country. I’m from Kazakstan. Why did you do that?”
“I’m actually looking for stuff on the table to grab hold of and like, get a fork and stab him,” Sacha half-joked to Howard.
The actor pleaded with him that it was only a joke and after a painful three minutes, Wladimir started to laugh and told Sacha he was joking and didn’t mind the film at all. In fact, he said he thought it was funny.