Actor-comedian Sacha Baron Cohen will poke fun at the seemingly insatiable greed of elite billionaires with his latest character created for the screen, a role based on the disgraced British billionaire and retailer owner Philip Green.
According to The Sun, Baron Cohen, 45, will play the role of a fictional retail billionaire in an upcoming film titled Greed, emulating the character of Green, the billionaire businessman heavily criticized for refusing to uphold an employee pension scheme as head of the British department store chain British Home Stores (BHS).
The actor previously found both critical and commercial success with cinematic characters Borat and Bruno.
“Sacha will have an almost uncanny resemblance to Sir Philip and those close to the producers believes it’s more than a nod to him,” a source close to the film told The Sun. “He’ll look more portly, with balding gray hair which is left long at the back.”
“The transformation will mean nobody will realise it’s Sacha, meaning he’ll be able to get up to his old tricks again,” the source added.
Another source told the newspaper the film would be a “satirical take on the world of the super-rich” and based on “the lavish lifestyles of the elite, perma-tanned billionaire businessmen who shamelessly invest money into offshore tax havens.”
Greed will be directed by filmmaker Michael Winterbottom, the man behind titles such as Welcome to Sarajevo, Wonderland, and 24 Hour Party People.
Baron Cohen received critical acclaim in 2006 for his Oscar-nominated film Borat, depicting the travels of a Kazakh reporter across America. Other films by the actor such as Brüno and The Dictator have been well received.
However, Baron Cohen’s most recent film The Brothers Grimsby, which follows the life of a football hooligan and his spy agent brother, was a box office flop, generating just $3.2 million in the comedian’s worst-ever opening weekend at the box office.
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