Rebel Rising: Chapter 23 - Sacha Baron Cohen and Other Assholes

Okay, so here’s the deal: I rue the day that I met Sacha Baron Cohen. “Never meet your idols,” people say. No shit!

I first met the towering presence of SBC through Matt Lucas. They’d been in the same high school class back in the day in London and were still good friends. It was an all-boys Jewish school that apparently has a lot of graduates who are now quite high-profile in comedy. I can only imagine the banter that went on at that school playground… it was probably a comedy show in itself. Wit can be a great weapon.

Just like how I adored Matt as a comedian and watched the Little Britain series religiously, I had loved every episode of Da Ali G Show. I was also a huge fan of the Borat movie, so much so that even though I was technically a star in Australian comedy, I lined up to attend the Bruno premiere in Melbourne and sat in the cinema excitedly just for a glimpse of SBC. He came in before the film to say a few words and there I was, in the twenty-eighth row, quickly licking my fingers of Maltesers chocolate residue, keenly trying to take a cool photo of him, zooming in, trying to cut off the heads of the people in front of me so that it could look like I was closer to my idol. There he was—the hilarious, outrageous SBC.

“I’ll never be as funny as him,” I thought. “He’s a genius.”

Matt is a very sociable guy and would often have exciting people over for dinner and a good chat. One night Russell Brand came over and regaled us with stories of his “interesting” life. The next night it was Boy George, or Tom Felton, who played Draco in Harry Potter. Fascinating! And then one night, Matt’s like, “I’m going to have a few people around for dinner—Sacha’s coming—if you want to join.” “Oh my God, Sacha Baron Cohen’s coming to the house for dinner!! Geeeez!!!” Often, I was exhausted from working almost every waking hour of the day, but of course I’d make time for a dinner party with SBC. I’d never properly spoken to him—this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

We were in Matt’s expertly renovated kitchen/dining space—and sitting around the table were Matt, SBC, me, Sarah Silverman and someone else—it could’ve been Jerry Seinfeld, but he left early. Suffice it to say, it was a table of comedy heavyweights. I couldn’t believe I was having dinner with this group. And I mean, of course the chat was hilarious—and serious and dark—and a tad competitive when it came to talking about our projects. Somehow there’s always a slight whiff of competition when a bunch of performers are around each other.

Later that week, I was about to host the 2013 MTV Movie Awards. I’d already shot a fun promo with my celebrity crush Channing Tatum where he’d touched my boobs, so I already felt like a winner. We filmed a little sketch where we were driving at high speed, being chased, and he was looking for his gun and I said innocently, “I think it’s down my top,” and then he reached in. Channing dug under the bra—I felt his hunky hands on my velvety-soft boobies—and did I really enjoy it? Hell yeah. It was the most action I’d ever had, and it was from Channing “Magic Mike” Tatum. (I still have a photo of that day in my office! #memories)

SBC had hosted the MTV Movie Awards before, so he was keen to give me advice. So, gingerly, I stood up at one end of the table and told the group jokes from my opening monologue. Then: silence. Comedians are the worst audience because they don’t usually laugh at jokes. They are often analyzing.

My heart was racing. Joke after joke for my opening monologue was falling flat, and I was really trying to impress them. After about twenty jokes, I gave up and didn’t read the rest. SBC looked at me with a solemn face, the kind of face that’s about to tell you something terrible, like your arm must be amputated. He said, “You’re in trouble.”

The others tried to gently reassure me that I still had time, but SBC made me feel like my career was about to be over. Fuck. These comedy geniuses thought I was shit. I wanted to cry. Instead, I messaged Tabatha saying I needed help, and we enlisted five or six stand-up comedians (one of whom was Ali Wong) to urgently write me some more jokes in the few days before the show. I started to really panic. Should I have not accepted this hosting job? SBC had really thrown off my confidence.

I went to Upright Citizens Brigade, a comedy theater in Los Angeles, with my stack of joke palm cards and essentially did the same material I’d tested in Matt’s kitchen—along with some of the newer jokes. Surprisingly, the cool kids who came to UCB to see comedy really loved the jokes. “Huh?” I thought. Why did SBC put the fear of God into me? Was I really awful? I just powered through on adrenaline over the next few days, absolutely full of nerves. I made sure to eat only a small vegan, gluten-free meal before going onstage that night—out of literal fear that I might shit myself—but by all accounts, I did CRUSH the MTV Movie Awards. The opening musical number, which had a lot of moving parts, went great, the jokes landed and I won an award for Best Breakthrough Performance as Fat Amy in Pitch. My publicist Dan and I high-fived afterward. For a live awards show that involved prerecorded segments, live musical numbers and various “bits” including audience interactions, everything went pretty much according to plan.

While 99 percent of the people I’ve worked with are professional and lovely, you do get the assholes from time to time. And yes, normally they are men. Sadly, I did have a cliché “hotel room incident” with a top Australian male comedy director. I never thought something like that would happen to a girl like me. I wasn’t exactly sexually desirable—I deliberately made myself not so—and this guy was very old. I believed him when he said, “Come back to my hotel room and we can talk more about comedy.” He was a nice guy, married. I felt safe when I agreed to go to his hotel.

His wife called on his cell phone and he tried to dismiss her while attempting to ply me with more wine—I’d only taken a minor sip as I don’t drink because I drive myself everywhere. Then his wife called the hotel room. The director sensed it was her and didn’t pick up the phone. But it was one of those old-school phones where you could hear someone leave a message through the speaker on the console. I sat on the couch and heard the wife’s message: “I know what you’re doing! You’re fucking Rebel Wilson, you piece of shit!” That was the first time that I considered anything other than comedy talk was going to happen in this room. What the hell? This guy was trying to sleep with me? He was soooooooo old! (And also no one ever wanted to sleep with me! So it was a double shock.) I promptly grabbed my handbag and headed straight out the door. We then never talked about it at work or addressed the incident. He was embarrassed… I think? I was embarrassed. That guy did have an incredible reputation in Australia, so I just brushed it off as maybe a misunderstanding, completed the show with him and never spoke of it.

I also brushed off an incident with a prominent director of photography. I asked him, “Where’s my mark?” (a common on-set actor question—a mark is usually a piece of tape placed on the ground so you know where to stand for camera focus). He pulled off two pieces of tape from a roll, made an X-shape and then placed it on my skirt over my vagina. “There’s your mark!” he said. (This was so brazen, it was kind of funny… the guy would always say that he was married to an actress, so somehow it was acceptable for him to flirt with all the girls on set.)

In movie studio meetings, I’ve heard male executives talking about women in demeaning ways. “She’s hot, I’d wanna bang her.” I wanted to be in the room where important decisions were happening… because at the end of the day I wanted my film projects to be green-lit. Since these men certainly weren’t ever looking at me as a sexual object, it’s almost as if they saw me as a buddy and not as a woman. It’s not that these men were particularly vile, it’s just that this behavior is seen as acceptable and so they do it openly.

I’ve been at industry parties where it was very clear that powerful men had called in prostitutes during the festivities. That was usually my cue to leave. I’d see, out of the corner of my eye, a Mercedes Sprinter van full of women pulling up: Russian accents, short skirts, designer bags. I’d say to my friend casually, “Ahhh, you know what, it’s getting late, you wanna go?” No one wants to talk to me when eight sets of legs topped with tits enter the room. The dogs salivate like it’s one of Mum’s arranged matings.

Okay, but forget those small freshly bleached assholes. Back to the biggest one: Sacha Baron Cohen. About a year after that MTV Movie Awards debacle, I get a call from him out of the blue. I answer, kind of giddy with excitement but trying to keep cool. It’s not every day one of the top guys in comedy is personally calling you. I felt like a cardigan-wearing teenage girl talking to Elvis. “Oh, hiiii… yeah… I’m good. How are you?” Why is he calling me? Why am I so special?

And then he says it—he’s DESPERATE for me to be in his new film, called The Brothers Grimsby. He says it’s going to be the most hilarious film ever made, “a comedy classic,” he keeps saying. He’s going to make me shine and guarantees I’ll just be so, so funny in the film. I’d play his wife. Would I do it?

“Yeah, sure, Sacha. I’ll do it.” I feel like Elvis has just shared his giant peanut butter sandwich with me. I’m so excited to work with him.

I’d had the great opportunity of working with some other high-profile men in American comedy—for example, Ben Stiller on Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb. He was such a total gentleman and allowed me to improvise whatever lines I wanted. Will Ferrell produced Bachelorette, and again, he could NOT have been lovelier. Seth Rogen had invited me to a few of his parties and had been very generous sharing his joints (which I didn’t smoke, but I was flattered he offered). Jason Segel agreed to sit down with me for lunch at Chateau Marmont when I was fresh off the plane from Australia and gave me advice about the business. Just lovely. I remember doing a kind of gala comedy night with people like Bob Saget and Garry Shandling, and these guys just couldn’t have been nicer or more fun to work with.

My most memorable chat with a male comedy great was with the incomparable Robin Williams (although meeting Mel Brooks in London is a close second!). We were on the set of Night at the Museum and it was the middle of the night in cold, wintry London. Robin was watching a scene I was filming with Ben and asked if he could chat with me during the break. I was of course down… I mean, hello! It’s THE LEGEND Robin Williams.

We sat during the “turnaround time” (the time it takes for the camera department to turn the cameras around, which is often thirty minutes) talking about comedy and life in general, both of us wrapped up in blankets. He had the kindest face and the warmest energy on the coldest of nights. He told me that he saw something in my acting that made him think that I’d be excellent at drama as well as comedy. Wow, what a compliment coming from him. I hugged him. I was honored to learn after his passing that he had also told his daughter, Zelda, about the exchange. To get that kind of recognition and encouragement from someone as iconic as Robin was absolutely inspiring. When people who are more senior in the industry take the time to advise and help other performers, without any agenda, it’s amazing. Bette Midler had also given me great advice when I’d been to see her on Broadway and I absolutely adore her too. (She’d had a similar experience to mine with network TV and told me not to feel down about it.) I got the same energy from her as I did from Robin, and I left feeling so inspired and enthused. (Okay, but enough name-dropping for the moment, Rebel!)

We had a table read at Paramount for The Brothers Grimsby, and—I don’t know how SBC managed to do this, he’s a very persuasive guy—Brad Pitt (sorry, one more name-drop, I can’t help myself) was there sitting RIGHT next to me. Yes, literally, I could have licked his ear if I wanted to—I was that close.

Brad tells me that he’s seen Pitch Perfect like thirty times because his kids are big fans. I melt with delight, and now that he’s facing me, I want to lick his face. He’s so amazingly gorgeous. And he’s looking into my eyes and smiling. Wow.

SBC is quite an imposing person—he’s very tall, I think six foot three, with wiry black hair and dark, almost black eyes. I noticed he always stacked things in his favor. Like at that table read, where movie studio executives were invited, all the other people there were either friends or employees who were instructed to laugh at absolutely everything he said. It was to make him look good and the project look successful. It wasn’t a surprise when The Brothers Grimsby got the green light and went into production.

Sadly, Brad Pitt didn’t end up being in the film (nooooooooooo!!!!), but there was a cast of other stellar stars—like Penélope Cruz, Gabourey Sidibe, Mark Strong and some fantastic British comedic talents. And the director was an incredibly talented man, Louis Leterrier, who had done the magic movie Now You See Me, which I really liked. I was excited to get started. We were filming in Cape Town, South Africa!! This was my first time back since I’d been there as an eighteen-year-old youth ambassador. Now I was thirty-four.

SBC had been hounding me to make sure my Northern English accent was perfect and authentic for the film. I spent all of my off-set time watching TV programs with the correct regional accent and trying to perfect it. He’d become almost obsessed with it. Earlier in the year he’d sent me on a research mission to the North of England to hang out with real people and record their voices, so that I could mimic the accent. I socialized with families and went to the pub with them and to their homes and recorded the whole thing for accent research. I didn’t mind doing it as an acting exercise, but it wasn’t like this was a Martin Scorsese film… though the way SBC was behaving, it was as if it was. (Oddly he didn’t seem to put much effort into his own accent, which I personally found patchy.)

I guess the first disappointment came on my first day playing husband and wife with SBC. I improvised a joke that got a good laugh from the crew. And you know it’s a good joke when even the burly boom operator has a chuckle. Then, in the next take of the scene, SBC took the joke and said it as his character. I was internally like, “Whaaaaaat!” I remember being so shocked, because that had never happened to me before. Then I began to notice that SBC never seemed that quick himself. He always seemed to be relying on his writer buddies to feed him jokes. On the days I was on set, I never saw him improvise anything himself that was “comedy genius.”

Then more weirdness. It felt like every time I’d speak to SBC, he’d mention that he wanted me to go naked in a future scene. I’d have to run in the nude across a soccer field in a hooligan crowd scene. I was like, “Ha, I don’t do nudity, Sacha. You know that.” I was constantly saying no to him, and he didn’t like it. Everybody around him was a yes-man. It felt like every day I had contact with him, he’d keep pushing the subject. For the record, it was in NO WAY essential to the plot that my character run naked onto a soccer field. It seemed to me he could see that the notion of this made me uncomfortable, so HE kept pushing for me to do this.

One day I got ready to film a scene and walked over to set. SBC instantly said that he didn’t like my outfit and made me change. From how I perceived it, he wanted me to wear a sleeveless top that showed the chunkiest part of my arms and a much shorter skirt where you could see as much cellulite as possible. I know making yourself unattractive is a device in comedy, but this felt personal—like he just wanted me to look and feel awful. This felt like he and his mates on set wanted to laugh at me, not with me. Fat Amy was different. I was in control of that character. But now everything felt off. It felt to me like a bunch of men were degrading me, making me show off the excessive fat behind my knees, the girth of my belly, my thick upper arms and thighs, because, in my opinion, they thought it was funny to laugh at the fat girl. SBC seemed to get off on the fact that here I was, a powerfully rising female comedy star, and he was yelling off camera, “Do a Sharon Stone and show your vagina,” as I’m sitting on the couch. Was all this because I said I wouldn’t go naked? He’d said that we should go out on a boat one weekend and take fake paparazzi pictures of us making out because it would bring publicity to the film. I had laughed that off because I knew his wife, Isla Fisher, and really didn’t want to be involved in anything like that. It confused me as to why he’d say such a thing when he was married.

SBC continued giving me gross directions in the scene, all of which I thought were either derogatory to women or to my size. I was just thinking maybe it’d be quicker to do it and not argue. The scene would happen much faster if I just did what he said. I was aware of other incidents in R-rated comedies where men were in control creatively and female co-stars were essentially “booed” in front of the crew if they didn’t go along with a tirade of insulting jokes that were thrown their way in a scene, even jokes about rape. I didn’t want to be labeled a troublemaker or someone who couldn’t “hang with the boys.” SBC would laugh when I did the things he asked (although I drew the line at showing my vagina on camera obviously)—and I thought, “Well, maybe he’s seeing something I’m not and maybe this is the right way to go comedically?” He made me doubt myself.

When I finished work for the day, I couldn’t help feeling like I was being humiliated. “What am I doing here? This isn’t me. I’m all about girl power. But SBC is a comedy genius, right?! I just have to go with it,” I thought.

The next week we’re filming a scene at a soccer stadium in Cape Town and I’m sitting in my trailer, waiting to go to set. SBC summons me via a production assistant saying that I’m needed to film an additional scene. The trailers are at a place called “base camp” with other trailers, production workers and catering, etc. It’s like a mini village that travels wherever we’re filming. But I get lured out of my trailer, my safe private space, and into the bowels of the stadium, into an unfinished concrete room with a dodgy-looking mattress on the bare floor. No one from the actual camera crew is there. Neither is the director, Louis. So how is this a scene for the film? The only people in the room are SBC and his mates.

“Okay, well, we’re gonna film this extra scene,” SBC says. Then he pulls his pants down while his friends stand there awkwardly recording the whole thing on their iPhones. SBC says very matter-of-factly: “Okay, now I want you to stick your finger up my ass.”

And I’m like, “What??… No!!”… He looks at me like I’m the crazy one. “Why would I do that?” He’s like, “Come on, it’d be really funny. You just stick your finger up my ass and then I’ll say something or you say something. And then we can use it for the movie.” I’m looking around, and again, there’s no director, there’s no camera crew or sound crew. This is NOT for the movie! It’s my opinion that SBC literally gets off on making people feel uncomfortable. (No wonder this guy gets sued all the time!)

I was now scared. I was in South Africa, I didn’t have any means of escape and I didn’t have anything with me—not my phone, not my wallet, nothing. This really didn’t seem right on so many levels. I had two university degrees and now I was being asked to insert my finger up my boss’s anus??

SBC kept asking me to do it. It felt like he asked me three hundred times. I just kept saying no. I wanted to get out of there, so I finally compromised: I slapped him on the ass and improvised a few lines as the character. Then someone was looking for SBC and calling for him on the production radios, and I got out of the room and back to the relative sanctuary of my trailer.

I called Tabatha at WME right away. It was super awkward because at the time she also represented SBC. “Look, you know, some weird shit’s been happening with SBC, but just now this really weird thing happened. SBC asked me to stick my finger up his ass.” She was genuinely sympathetic and we got a lawyer on the phone so I could talk about it, but I was also acutely aware that SBC had probably earned the agency way more money to date than I had. It’s a tricky situation. It’s like you’re complaining to somebody at HR, but you know the person you’re complaining about is also their superstar. It felt like a conflict of interest. What should have happened is that I should have been put on a flight back to Los Angeles—quit the movie. But I was encouraged to “be professional and finish the film.” I said, “Well I wasn’t physically attacked, so, you know, maybe I should just stay and finish.” Tabatha: “Yesss, actually, maybe you’re right. You should just do that. But if anything else like that happens again, then you can go.”

My team complained to the movie studio. I was told that I may not have been the only one to have had issue with his behavior. Did he also “love-bomb” others to convince them to be in his films, only to then humiliate them on set?

Are the jokes in Borat directed toward women really just his deep-seated misogyny packaged with a comedy bow? (He carefully tried to disarm this image by creating and publicly promoting a great female role in the second Borat film after having a clear pattern in all his other work of demeaning female characters. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that he championed Maria Bakalova so heavily… it is my opinion that this was a deliberate strategy to wave a flag saying, “Look how nice I am to females!”)

For the hooligan crowd scene in the soccer stadium, he hired a local stripper to be my body double and run naked across the pitch. He made me watch her do it. He was sitting at the monitors watching her boobs and big stomach flopping about as she ran. “Oh, look how good she is. See, Rebel, she’s doing it!” By this point I’d become numb to him, to his comments. I stopped reacting. I noticed he had now moved on, trying to get the director, Louis, to show his penis in a scene—so at least other people were now the target of his antics.

I left South Africa a few days later, feeling more than uneasy about the whole thing. While I reported the incident to my agent and now lawyer, this was before the #MeToo movement, so I didn’t have the strength or know-how to do anything more. SBC was no longer my comedy idol. In my opinion, he was a gross asshole… and really had something against women, particularly overweight women. It’s like the fourth-grade bully who teases the fat girl on the playground and tries to make her life a living hell.

I later did a radio interview with Kyle and Jackie O (the most popular radio show in Australia) and I made light of the incident where SBC asked me to stick my finger in his ass. I’m not sure why I did that? I knew how everybody in Australia loved SBC and his outrageous comedy. My way of dealing with it at that point was to try to laugh it off. I often use negative experiences in my life as fodder for jokes.

I was trying to forget about the whole thing, I really was. I was trying to develop more projects for myself, movies that were female driven with empowering messages. Then I got an email saying that SBC wanted me to fly to London for “reshoots.” I opened the script attachment and was horrified to see these reshoots were for a graphic sex scene between us for the beginning of the film.

I called my agent immediately. What am I supposed to do about this? Well, I could fly to London, she suggested, and have a face-to-face meeting to tell him what I would and wouldn’t be comfortable doing in the scene. That was about as exciting as the prospect of being served a bag of dicks for dinner. But what was my only other option? I could walk away from my role in the film and be labeled “UNPROFESSIONAL.” (Fun fact: Penélope Cruz refused to do any reshoots, but she was clearly a bigger star than me and I’m not sure of her reasons why. It could’ve been the classic excuse of “scheduling conflicts.”)

In anticipation of this grotty predicament, I asked my lawyer to draw up a letter to be sent to SBC and the writers about the scene itself, stipulating that under no circumstances would I be naked or involved in grotesque stuff with sex toys. I mean… NO. At what point does self-deprecating humor become exploitation? I’ve never, ever done nudity. (Even though it was tempting when Miley Cyrus once asked me to do a nude photo shoot with her when I first got famous… THAT I considered for a hot second because I am such a huge Miley fan.)

I flew to London, assured by my agent that all the producers would be at the meeting with SBC, including the one female (who surely would be on my side and sympathetic? Like, surely?!?). Maybe SBC would understand where I was coming from and that some of his actions were not cool toward women? That’s what I hoped.

I called the meeting in a conference room at the Corinthia Hotel and sat on one side of the large worktable that took up most of the room. All the other attendees sat on the opposite side. Against me. It was SBC, his writers, and the director, Louis, who didn’t know what had occurred at the soccer stadium at that time, nor did he know about my complaint at that point. There was no female producer present. The guys looked annoyed that I’d caused them to take time out of their busy day to deal with this nuisance. I’d flown halfway across the world to help the film, but the attitude I felt from them was: Rebel Wilson is causing an issue. I’m the problem. Why won’t I just film the graphic sex scene as written, where because I’m so overweight the bed falls through the floor? Why am I being so annoying?

I was sitting directly opposite SBC and he was staring at me with his black-hole eyes, intimidating me, letting me know that he was personally funding these reshoots and that I should be grateful. Eventually, just like in the unfinished room at the soccer stadium, I agreed to shoot something so I could get the hell out of this awkward room. Louis and one of the writers were the only sympathetic ears, but it was clear SBC was running this show.

The next day I filmed the scene, after demanding the rewrites complied with my letter, stipulating things like “no dildos” can be used. But I still had to simulate having sex with this guy. I still had to kiss him repeatedly.

A few months later, it really sank in that all this wasn’t something that could be laughed off; it felt like SBC had sexually harassed me on the set of Grimsby. So, for the first time in my career, I relayed to the producers via Tabatha that I would not be doing any promotion for the film. That was really the only power I had left in this situation. To her credit, Tabatha had parted ways with SBC and no longer represented him. I’m sure being a high-powered woman in Hollywood herself, she’d dealt with many unfair things in her career too, which I came to realize was probably why she often behaved the way she did in situations. Perhaps this is why she often behaved like a shark? Perhaps this is why she had to. She had to cope in an industry that for decades was male dominated and often wasn’t kind to smart women who spoke their mind.

A few days later I got an unexpected phone call from SBC’s associate, who was very unhappy I wasn’t going to publicly support the film. “You know there’s only really five big movie studios in Hollywood, and we can ruin your reputation with all of them,” he said. My heart was pumping like I was about to be physically attacked. What? Was SBC also on the call or in this associate’s office right now? Was he directing this guy to say this? I didn’t know. The associate was talking in such a dark, ominous tone. I felt threatened. I felt scared. My career was everything to me and now it felt like these assholes were trying to take it away because I wasn’t doing what they wanted.

In my mind, this alleged threat was probably worse than the incident in South Africa itself. I sat in my home office, looking over at the Hollywood sign, feeling petrified. Again, I reported it to my lawyer, and I was happy to hear that WME had fully parted ways with SBC. (Although it would’ve been nice if they’d done it earlier! But that wasn’t common practice before #MeToo, so I don’t feel like anyone should be blamed for anything.)

I didn’t promote Grimsby. I couldn’t. I never went to the premiere. The movie bombed, which to me was karma enough. I’m not about canceling anybody and that’s not my motivation for sharing this story. My goal is to tell you, dear reader, about an experience that was HARD. That made me feel like rubbish. It made me feel completely disrespected, which led to me treating myself with even more disrespect by eating in an extremely unhealthy way. When the #MeToo movement came around in 2017, I shared a small Twitter-size version of my story but didn’t mention SBC by name. I know he’s litigious and at the time had far more financial resources than me. I’m sharing my story now because the more women talk about things like this, hopefully the less it happens. And hopefully fewer women have to work harder just to respect themselves.

Who knows what those assholes said about me in high-level meetings with the studios? Did they try to ruin my reputation? I don’t know. I’m bloody glad I never stuck my finger up SBC’s ass, though. But every time I drive past his house in LA, I do wind down the window of my G-wagon and stick my middle finger right up at him.