Exclusive: Sacha Baron Cohen’s The Lesbian to be a musical

Now that Ali G, Borat and Bruno are well behind him (except for perhaps the random award show appearance), Sacha Baron Cohen appears to be firmly in the business of creating brand new characters and narratives to shock us with. THE DICTATOR was met with mostly mixed reactions, but his forthcoming THE BROTHERS GRIMSBY is sure to be a love-it or hate-it experience. This movie shows you sights you cannot unsee; you might laugh, you might puke, you might do both at the same time. At least Cohen swings for the fences when he puts together a set piece, give him that.

I recently chatted with Cohen and talked all things GRIMSBY (the full interview goes live tomorrow) but also touched upon what's next for the comedian. According to Cohen, he's hard at work developing THE LESBIAN, which we initially heard about all the way back in 2012. What we didn't know until now? It's a musical! Here's Cohen's full quote on the matter:

I'm developing a musical called The Lesbian at the moment, which is based on the true story of a billionaire whose daughter tells him she's getting married to a woman and he offers $65 million to any man who can turn her straight. It's a true story, but we're doing the twist on it."

Sadly, I didn't have enough time to allow Cohen to further elaborate, but there you have it. As we've seen from his performances in SWEENEY TODD and LES MISERABLES, Cohen can certainly belt out a tune, so him taking center stage in a full-blooded musical isn't completely out of the blue. It's unknown who will end up directing THE LESBIAN at this point, or if new screenwriters are working on it (KLOWN scribes Casper Christensen and Frank Hvam were Cohen's first picks for the project three years ago.) As always, stay tuned for more as we hear it.

THE BROTHERS GRIMSBY opens March 11th.