The best part about Sacha Baron Cohen’s undercover mockumentary projects, such as “Borat,” “Bruno,” or even the recent “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm,” is how each of them builds to a comedic crescendo. As we saw with ‘Moviefilm,’ the sequel to “Borat,” the climax came when Baron Cohen was able to literally catch Rudy Guiliani with his hand down his pants. But for as amazing as that might have been, the Guiliani scene was only one of a bunch of different ideas for the finale of the film.
Speaking to Variety, producer and ‘Moviefilm’ co-writer Anthony Hines explained how one of the other ideas for the finale of the sequel involved another one of Donald Trump’s close, personal confidants, Mike Lindell, the founder of MyPillow.
“We had this crazy idea to do a socially distanced interview with Mike Lindell and Borat’s daughter, and since we couldn’t do it indoors, we’d do it in the edge of the woods or some kind of wasteland,” said Hines.” “There would be a mattress there with a load of MyPillow products and Borat would find Mike Lindell at the edge of the woods in a bed with his daughter. The MyPillow guy would then have to explain what the hell was going on. That was just one harebrained alternative to the scene that ended up in the movie.”
Obviously, if you follow Trump and the circus sideshow that has been American politics for the last 5 years, you are probably familiar with the “MyPillow guy,” aka Mike Lindell. He started as just the guy pitching his stupid pillow on late-night TV infomercials and regular commercial ads. But once Trump took office, Lindell inserted himself heavily into the campaign and subsequent Presidential term as one of POTUS’ go-to friends. Lindell would often travel to rallies and speak on behalf of Trump and his gaggle of ultra-crazies. So, it makes sense why the team behind “Borat” would have their sights set on him.
READ MORE: ‘Borat 2’: Wa Wa Wee Wa, ‘Subsequent Moviefilm’ Is Very Niiice… Not! [Review]
That said, landing Rudy Guiliani was a much bigger “get” for the filmmakers. And thus, the Lindell scene was scrapped for the finale that ended the “Borat” sequel. According to Hines, Lindell and Guiliani were just two of the dozens considered for the finale scene.
He added, “In sort of like a crazy pipe dream world, Giuliani would have been Donald Trump. But we had 20 to 30 people in the Trump universe that could have been the subject of that interview, and with the possible exception of Trump himself, Giuliani was the one we wanted the most.”
Of course, we know what happened with that, as the image of Guiliani with his hand down his pants while in the same room as Borat’s “daughter” has become iconic. But in an alternate universe, maybe we would have seen Lindell in a similarly gross situation.