British comedian and actor Sacha Baron Cohen has turned down an opportunity to present an Oscar at Sunday's Academy Award ceremony as he would be unable to appear as his invented character Borat Sagdiyev.
Oscar broadcast producer Laura Ziskin told the Los Angeles Times: "He was asked, but he declined."
Baron Cohen has only been doing interviews in character as the fictional, misogynistic, anti-Semitic, TV reporter from Kazakhstan who starred in the fake documentary 'Borat: Cultural Learnings Of America For Make Benefit Glorious Nation Of Kazakhstan'.
He may still get an opportunity to appear on stage; together with four other collaborators, Baron Cohen's script for 'Borat' has been nominated in the Best Adapted Screenplay category.
In related news, Kanat Saudabayev, Kazakhstan's envoy to the United States, spoke at Yale University and defended his country against "misconceptions" caused by the hit comedy, presenting the former Soviet state as a modern nation of well-educated professionals.
