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    • Sacha Baron Cohen is unrecognizable in the Apple TV “disclaimer”.
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    Sacha Baron Cohen is unrecognizable in the Apple TV “disclaimer”.

    Kathleen William Posted on

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    Spoiler alert! The following story details the first two episodes of the Apple TV+ series “Disclaimer” (streaming now).

    Sacha Baron Cohen has a knack for transformative roles, playing goofy Italian hairdressers and irreverent Kazakh journalists.

    But in the new Apple TV+ series “Disclaimer,” the “Borat” star pulls off his biggest disappearance yet: portraying a painfully ordinary guy. At the start, Robert Ravenscroft (Cohen) is a loving husband to Catherine (Cate Blanchett), an acclaimed journalist whose past comes back to haunt her in the form of a mysterious new novel that bears a disturbing resemblance to her life. With his thick glasses, shock of hair and grumpy demeanor, Robert is unrecognizable to fans who only know Cohen as a comedian prone to antics.

    When I was watching the show, a few people said to me, 'I didn't know where you were or if you were even in it,'” says Cohen, 52, returning to the spotlight after his Oscar-nominated role in “The Trial.” against the Chicago 7” from 2020.

    Strangeness was the goal, says “Disclaimer” director Alfonso Cuarón (“Roma”): “Sacha insisted that he had to look like someone else. It can't be, 'Oh, Sacha Baron Cohen is playing this guy.' So when you finally realize it's Sacha, he already has the credibility and verisimilitude of the character.”

    Sacha Baron Cohen is not the “perfect, supportive” spouse in “Disclaimer.”

    Based on Renée Knight's 2015 novel, the seven-part “Disclaimer” is a “Scarlet Letter”-style thriller about Catherine, who is accused of having an affair with a young man named Jonathan (Louis Partridge) while on vacation in Italy years ago. to have had. Jonathan died saving Catherine's four-year-old son from drowning, and his parents (Kevin Kline and Lesley Manville) sought revenge by writing a scandalous novel inspired by the events.

    Jonathan's father goes one step further and sends Robert explicit photos of Catherine taken by his late son. Furious, Robert confronts Catherine about the affair at the end of Episode 2, dropping “that façade of the perfect, supportive male figure,” says Cuarón.

    Cohen and Cuarón have been friends for two decades and previously discussed adapting a novel by Lina Wertmüller for the screen. When the Oscar-winning filmmaker was assembling his “Disclaimer” cast, he decided to call Cohen.

    At first, “Sacha felt a little intimidated coming out of a straight comedy,” Cuarón says. “As with his characters, his first instinct is to wear a mask.”

    Our critic raves: Alfonso Cuarón's 'Disclaimer' is the best TV show of the year: review

    Cohen's greatest fear in the role of Robert was “the range of emotions: the sadness and the anger and this militant compassion while hiding his malice,” the actor says. “Robert feels insecure next to his incredibly successful spouse. He admires her, but deep down he's jealous, even if he can't admit it to himself. This incident allows him to reverse the power dynamic and suddenly he becomes the alpha male.”

    After an awards dinner honoring Catherine in the first episode, Robert lovingly tells her that “he's always happy” to be her asset. It's a line that Cohen asked Cuarón to add to the script, suggesting that Robert may not be as laid-back and reserved as he lets on.

    “He says it laughing, but what he's really saying is, 'I'm your plus one and I wish you were mine.' I wish you would watch Me “Receiving an award,” says Cohen. “He takes some pleasure in destroying them under this illusion of justice. Robert is absolutely convinced of his own virtue, and he is unaware of how cruel he is becoming.”

    Cate Blanchett describes this “terrifying” confrontation scene

    In the explosive final scene of the second episode, Robert attacks Catherine over her infidelity and nude photos, calling her a distant lover and a bad mother to her troubled, now grown son Nicholas (Kodi Smit-McPhee). She barely gets a word in edgewise during the seven-minute argument at her kitchen table.

    “It's such a long scene, and a lot of the rest of the series was about the assumptions Robert made and preventing Catherine from speaking,” says Blanchett. “Suddenly she is cut out of the narrative in such a strange way. There are a lot of ups and downs in the scene, which is a joy but also quite frightening for an actor.”

    Cuarón insisted on filming everything in one uninterrupted take to better capture the charged emotions of the moment.

    “I cry, I scream, I get betrayed, I’m suspicious, I have epiphanies, I’m drunk,” Cohen says, laughing. “I begged Alfonso, 'Can we please just do it in sections and edit it together later?' And he said, “Absolutely not.” “Editing is murder.” He insisted that we do it over and over again, so I think we did about 17 takes in a row.”

    As “Disclaimer” progresses, viewers learn Catherine’s side of the story, although Blanchett is hesitant to say more.

    “When I talked about the book with people who had read it, they always raised an eyebrow,” she remembers. “They would never give away the ending, which is great. People get pretty protective about not revealing too much.

    Cohen also encourages the audience to go along for the ride before making moral judgments.

    “It's really a story about destruction within a family,” Cohen teases. “People who are self-destructive rarely think that they are self-destructive.”

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    Kathleen William
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