KEY POINTS:
Borat is dead, and Ali G is gone too.
Sacha Baron Cohen has told The Daily Telegraph that he is retiring the clueless Kazakh journalist, as well as his alter ego, aspiring rapper Ali G.
"When I was being Ali G and Borat I was in character sometimes 14 hours a day and I came to love them, so admitting I am never going to play them again is quite a sad thing," the 36-year-old actor-comedian said.
"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."
Baron Cohen brought Borat Sagdiyev - an anti-Semitic buffoon in search of Pamela Anderson - to the masses with his smash hit comedy, Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan.
Baron Cohen first introduced the character of Borat on Da Ali G Show.
"It's much easier for me to be in character and it's a lot more fun," he says. "If I'd done the entire promotional campaign for [Borat] as myself it wouldn't have developed in the same way."
Baron Cohen - not Borat - is a singing barber in the movie Sweeney Todd, with Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter.
