Naked men wrestling in a hotel and Michael Moore sailing into Guantanamo Bay, Cuba — it’s all connected.
Moore met “Borat” creator Sasha Baron Cohen at last fall’s Toronto International Film Festival. Cohen was there to screen “Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan,” while Moore showed footage shot for his documentary “Sicko,” opening nationwide Friday.
Cohen told Moore that he had drawn inspiration from Moore’s documentaries. Moore also said Cohen thanked him for helping to provide the courage for his own daring adventures in “Borat,” in which Cohen’s Kazakh alter-ego wrestles naked with his portly producer.
“I said to him, ‘But yeah, I’ve never done anything like wrestle naked with another guy on the floor of an insurance-brokers or mortgage-brokers convention,’
” Moore told The Associated Press. “So after I saw ‘Borat,’ if he says I was an inspiration for those things, I now have to up the ante for him. So we sailed into the mined waters of Guantanamo Bay with sick 9/11 workers and a bullhorn.”
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Personals was compiled by Emily Rosenbaum from Tribune news services and staff reports.
