LONDON:

The actor behind controversial spoof reporter Borat has killed him off, he said in an interview with Britain’s Daily Telegraph.

Sacha Baron Cohen said that Borat, the outrageous, blundering character from Kazakhstan who earned him a Golden Globe award last year, had made his last screen appearance.

“When I was being Borat, I was in character sometimes 14 hours a day, so admitting I am never going to play Borat again is quite a sad thing,” he told the paper.

“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.”

The makers of the movie are also facing threats of legal action from several people who say they were tricked into appearing in the mock documentary.

“Since last year I’ve been sued by about 3,000 people,” Baron Cohen told the Telegraph.

“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 dollars and at the end says, ‘PS Loved the movie. Can

you sign a poster for my son Jeremy?’” — AFP