Sacha Baron Cohen Plays 'The Dictator'

Sacha Baron Cohen, the star of both Brüno and Borat, was seen on the Upper East Side of Manhattan on June 14, filming his newest movie, The Dictator, a biopic loosely based on Saddam Hussein.

The idea for the movie was inspired by Zabibah and the King, a book rumored to have been ghostwritten by Saddam himself. The book details the love story between an Iraqi King and a poor, unhappily married woman abused by her husband. It appears to be a romance novel on the surface, but is actually an allegory for Iraq and the United States. The King is Iraq, the woman is the Iraqi people, and the husband is the United States.

Baron Cohen drops the allegory and opts instead for the King to be comically replaced by a goat-herder who moves to New York, where he meets and falls in love with an unhappily married woman (to be played by Anna Faris). The movie is directed by Larry Charles, who also directed Brüno and Borat.