Sacha Baron Cohen is a British comedian and actor. John Kiriakou describes him as “a comedic genius — and I don’t use the word genius lightly. I’ve only worked with a handful of people in my life that I would consider to be geniuses. He’s a genius.”[1]
The Bruno advisory role
Kiriakou was brought in as a Middle East script advisor for Bruno by a mutual friend who worked as a fixer and connector. Baron Cohen wanted to film portions of the movie in the Middle East — specifically, to recruit retired terrorists to react on camera to explicit photographs — and needed expert guidance on navigating regional intelligence services.[2][3] Baron Cohen called Kiriakou directly to pitch the scene: he wanted to put his gay Austrian fashion-journalist character Bruno in front of “bonafide terrorists” — he was thinking al-Qaeda or Hezbollah — and show them Polaroids of men having hardcore anal sex, then ask, in character, whether it constituted torture warranting Guantanamo.[4]
Kiriakou told him it was “an exceptionally bad idea” to use religious extremists, who “they’ll kill you, they’ll kill your crew” — and instead suggested retired, non-religious Marxist Palestinian militants living in Damascus: the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – General Command, the Abu Nidal Organization, and the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine.[5]
For a filming location, Kiriakou proposed Libya (which was “begging us to film movies there” under Gaddafi), then Morocco (rejected because its architecture would be immediately recognizable), before settling on Syria — advising Baron Cohen to work through the Syrian ambassador he knew personally. Baron Cohen went around him and visited the Syrian consulate in Newport Beach instead; staff recognized him and turned him away, with a consular officer emerging from behind the bulletproof glass to say, “I know who you are. I know what you do. You are not welcome in Syria.”[6][7][8] Baron Cohen called Kiriakou at midnight afterward: “John, I think I fucked up, mate.”[9]
The Jordan incident
Kiriakou repeatedly warned Baron Cohen that proceeding to Jordan without informing the Jordanian Intelligence Service would backfire, describing it as “one of the best services in the world.” Baron Cohen refused: “Can’t break cover. Can’t break character. Don’t want to tell the Jordanians.”[1][10]
Baron Cohen flew to Amman a day ahead of Kiriakou. At the airport, a man was waiting with a sign reading “Sacha Baron Cohen.” A limousine drove them to the Royal Palace, where King Abdullah II personally greeted him: “Sacha Baron Cohen, I’m your biggest fan. Borat? I thought I was going to pee my pants.” The director of the Jordanian Intelligence Service was standing beside the king, who told Baron Cohen: “Anything you need, you call him. Welcome to Jordan.”[11][12][13]
Kiriakou’s verdict: “I told you before you even landed, they knew what you were doing. They’re that good.”[14]
The Polaroid scene
Kiriakou tracked down the two elderly retired Palestinian militants for the scene by looking up their names and numbers in the Damascus telephone book, reasoning that “nobody remembers them” decades on.[15] The scene itself fell flat: Baron Cohen had wanted the men to react with rage — to “leap across the table” — but the elderly militants, adjusting their glasses to look at the Polaroids, only registered mild discomfort, muttering “this not good, this not good” before one added it was “haram.” The footage was cut from the finished film.[16]
Separately, while filming Borat/Bruno material at Jerusalem’s Western Wall dressed in leather hot pants and boots, Baron Cohen was spotted by a group of yeshiva students and their rabbi, who spat on him and called him a slur; the students then beat him, blackening both his eyes, and Baron Cohen broke character mid-assault to plead that it was a joke for a movie. Filming halted for two weeks while his eyes healed.[17]
The Spy
Baron Cohen later played Eli Cohen — the MOSSAD deep-cover agent executed in Damascus in 1966 — in the Netflix series The Spy. Kiriakou called it “a very, very serious role” and “fantastic.”[18]