Bruno star Sacha Baron Cohen: I’m 23 percent gay

‘Bruno’ star Sacha Baron Cohen is apparently exactly 23 percent gay.

The actor, who is famous for his comedy characters including Borat, Bruno and Ali G, was asked about his sexuality while appearing on the WTF with Marc Maron podcast.

He discussed the origin of his gay Austrian character Bruno, speaking about baiting “rednecks” and homophobes as the character, and narrowly escaping a large amount of violent incidents.

Cohen, who is married to Australian actor Isla Fisher, said: “Particularly in Bruno, it’s a different form of prejudice. You have anti-Semitism, you have racism, but homophobia means fear of the homosexual.”

He continued: “Where there’s fear that can turn into violence – and people who don’t like gay people are scared of them, and that can transition into violence pretty quickly.

“There was a study where they found out (…) homophobes who are most likely to be violent against gay people are those who had some increase in blood show to their groin while seeing naked men.”

“Straight or gay… they’re silly terms because it’s a scale, and everyone is somewhere on the scale.”

He joked: “I’m 23 percent gay. I’ve worked it out, I did the calculations. I’m 23 percent gay.

“There are times I go down to 17, times I go up to 31.

“When I was doing Borat and I had the testicles on my chin, I was at 31.”

“Everyone’s on that scale somewhere. Sexuality’s like being ‘black’ or ‘white’ – no one’s entirely black or white, unless they’re albino. They’re on a scale.”

The actor was previously in line to star in a biopic on the life of legendary Queen singer Freddie Mercury – but pulled out of the project in 2013 over “creative differences”.

It was rumoured at the time that Cohen had repeatedly clashed with Mercury’s surviving bandmates about the tone of the film, and had been unwilling to compromise on his vision.

James Bond actor Ben Whishaw was rumoured to be taking over the lead role, but nearly three years later the project is still yet to get the official green light, and appears to be caught in ‘development hell’.

Screenwriter Anthony McCarten was reported to have signed on to the film late last year, however, indicating that the project is still progressing on some level.