Sacha Baron Cohen can go to the deepest well of characters, both comedic and dramatic. Think Ali G, Borat, Brüno, and… cellist.
On Tuesday night (Oct. 20), the British funnyman showed us another side, as he slipped into Beck’s strings ensemble for a performance on NBC’s The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.
For a change, Cohen didn’t play for laughs. Or play anyone, for that matter. The Dictator actor flexed his musician muscles for a surprise back seat spot on the cello, supporting Beck on “In the Night.”
“In the Night” appears on Beck’s Ride Lonesome, a sweeping and delicate album that captures the sonic textures of his 2015 Grammy Award-winning album of the Year Morning Phase and its spiritual companion, Sea Change from 2002.
Ride Lonesome (via Capitol Records) dropped last month and is Beck’s first collection of all-new material since 2019’s Hyperspace. Watch his late night performance below, with a little help from Sasha Baron Cohen.
Earlier, Beck and Cohen sat for separate chats with Fallon. Beck spoke with the host on the inspiration behind his latest LP, the “austere” design of his tour in support of it, and recounted how Luke Wilson’s Hansel character in Zoolander was (maybe) based on him.
Beck confirmed that he was asked to be in Zoolander, but he “stupidly said no.” Instead, the producers got David Bowie.
Reflecting on Ride Lonesome, Beck reckons: “It’s a moody kinda stuff. It’s the mood of like when you’re in your house, it’s almost dark but you haven’t turned the lights on. It’s kinda like blue hour.”
Cohen, meanwhile, sat with Fallon for some insights into his mockumentary Ali G: Who Iz I?, for which he revives his breakthrough character Ali G. Cohen makes his feature directorial debut in Who Iz I?, which Amazon MGM Studios releases this Friday (Oct. 23) in cinemas for just one week, ahead of its streaming rollout on Prime Video.
A new Sasha Baron Cohen film is never without controversy. Who Iz I?, however, has been slammed by some activists as a racism hiding in plain sight. Cohen has responded with a cover essay for Time magazine, in which he writes, “The fact that Ali G is outdated and problematic is the very reason I resurrected him.” The world Ali G has “returned to is, in many ways, worse than the one he left 20 years ago. All the prejudices my characters are designed to expose haven’t just lingered—they’ve metastasized. They’re fueled by the greatest propaganda machine in history—social media—and now by its monstrous child, AI.”
Watch Fallon’s interviews below.
