Sacha Baron Cohen and Quentin Tarantino are finally working together, just not on a movie. The Borat star is reportedly set to lead The Popinjay Cavalier, Tarantino’s first stage play, with the filmmaker also directing the production for London’s West End.
Cohen is expected to play the title character when the production opens at a yet-to-be-announced West End theatre in spring 2027. It would mark Cohen’s West End debut, while Tarantino will be making the jump from movies to professional theatre as both writer and director.
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Deadline first reported Cohen’s casting, with The Hollywood Reporter also reporting that he will take the lead. Produced by Sonia Friedman Productions and Sony Pictures Entertainment, The Popinjay Cavalier is set in 1830s Europe and described as “a rambunctious comedy of deception and disguise inspired by the grand swashbuckling epics of stage and screen.”
Plot details remain under wraps, but the swashbuckling set-up sounds like Tarantino is embracing the theatricality of the whole thing rather than simply putting one of his movies on a stage. Producer Sonia Friedman previously told The Guardian that Tarantino is particularly focused on what audiences will get out of the experience.
“He wants the audience to have the best freaking night out in the theatre they’ve had all year.”
Tarantino has made it clear that this isn’t a quick diversion between movies, either. Speaking about the project last year, he said:
“The play is written. It is absolutely the next thing I’m going to do. We’ll start the ball rolling on it in January. … It’s probably going to take up a year and a half to two years of my life.”
Cohen may be making his West End debut, but theatre isn’t entirely foreign territory. Long before Ali G and Borat made him famous, he trained under influential French clown teacher Philippe Gaulier. Following Gaulier’s death earlier this year, Cohen credited him with steering his life towards comedy.
“Instead, I chose comedy – entirely because he believed in me, pushed me, and armed me with techniques that still get me into trouble.”
Tarantino Nearly Cast Him Before
There is also some unfinished business between the pair. Tarantino cast Cohen in a small role in 2012’s Django Unchained, but the actor ultimately dropped out to appear in Tom Hooper’s Les Misérables.
More than a decade later, their first completed collaboration could now have Cohen front and centre, only this time Tarantino won’t have a camera to hide behind.
Publicists for Cohen and The Popinjay Cavalier had not formally confirmed the casting when contacted by The Guardian.
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