After having acted alongside Sacha Baron Cohen in “Hugo” and, now, “The Dictator,” Ben Kingsley seems more than wowed.
The “Gandhi” actor plays Tamir, the right-hand-man-turned-traitor to Baron Cohen’s oppressive anti-hero Aladeen in the film, which is in theaters starting today. Kingsley told HitFix in our recent interview that he’s admired the “Borat” comedian since his days on the “Ali G” show in the U.K., describing him personally as “very intelligent,” a “raconteur” and, yes, “chilled out.”
In “The Dictator,” audiences see the flip side of that, as Aladeen becomes a parody of dictators from the Middle East and North Africa, like Muammar Gaddafi and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. He is — according to Kingsley — what Charlie Chaplin was in 1940 in “The Great Dictator,” a master of satire in making a mockery of tyrants and “drunken postmen” like Adolph Hitler.
Check out the complete video interview with Kingsley above, plus HitFix’s chat with co-star Anna Faris here.
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