Out of character

OK, so I have to admit -- it was a little disconcerting to see Sacha Baron Cohen without his "Borat" mustache.

When the lanky comedian showed up the other day for his first newspaper interview as himself since the inception of Boratmania last fall, Cohen looked a little smaller than life, especially compared with the outsized character who caused such a sensation in "Borat," the surprise hit that managed to be something for all people, whether you laughed at Borat's outlandish behavior -- or the people who indulged it.

Sipping a hot lemon tea at a coffee shop in Santa Monica, Cohen had the air of a man who'd shed a layer of skin that had been worn to a frazzle. With a thatch of unruly black hair and a three-day beard, wearing a rumpled corduroy jacket, the 35-year-old comic could pass for a young UCLA film professor without attracting a second glance. His thick Kazakh accent was gone, replaced by a sober British purr.

It was brilliant marketing, with Cohen earning a tsunami of free press from news organizations that happily turned their reporters into straight men for a series of madcap interviews. In a way, he's still at it, unveiling the real Sacha at press parties and Q&A sessions at the height of Oscar season. His publicist first called with the idea of Cohen doing an interview -- as himself -- the day after he scored a Golden Globe nomination. Coincidence? I think not.

Still, the burden of being Borat took its toll, especially during months of filming when, to keep up the charade, he was Borat from dawn to dusk.

"It was exhausting," he recalls, slumped in the booth, fighting off a nagging cold. "I had to be that way all day and all night, because even if the tiniest detail had gone awry, it could've made them suspicious. I mean, even if I went to the bathroom, I had to make sure I went to the bathroom as Borat."

He allowed a tiny sliver of a smile. "There would definitely be potpourri in the toilet so you'd know Borat had been there."