Ali G film stooge says he guessed Sacha Baron Cohen's identity early and played along

Joshua Loudermilk, one of two men presented as unwitting participants in the new film Ali G: Who Iz I?, says he was in on the joke all along. He claims the film-makers never realised it.

Loudermilk, 54, is an aspiring actor from North Carolina. He told the Guardian he recognised star Sacha Baron Cohen early in the shoot, but carried on playing a hard-right Maga sympathiser willing to defend the US border at all costs. Representatives for the film confirmed again last week that he was not in on it. They have not yet answered a follow-up question about his claim.

In the movie, another Cohen character, the ex-Mossad terrorist expert Col Erran Morad, recruits Loudermilk to help form a citizens' warrior force to protect US borders. Morad's secret weapon is a gun disguised as buttocks. Loudermilk and fellow recruit Michael Aboud, chair of the El Paso county Republican party, join a mission to stop a fictional South American drugs kingpin's baby from being born on US soil. The plot involves abducting a woman apparently in labour, kidnapping her newborn (a lifelike prosthetic) and delivering it by drone to Mexico. Aboud is shown choosing to drop the child from a great height into Mexican territory. He has since called Cohen a "liar" and a "pervert" and said he intends to sue.

Loudermilk's involvement began in September 2025, when he saw a Craigslist post from the American Citizen Initiative, whose website is no longer active. It sought "patriotic legal Americans" concerned about the border crisis and promised $300 plus travel expenses. He describes himself as broadly apolitical and says money was his main motive after he was made redundant. "It could have been save the whales and I would have done it," he said.

He invented hard-right views on his application, mentioned he had been a preacher and left out his comedy acting ambitions, partly from embarrassment. A video interview followed, in which he correctly named Borat among other figures. The company then flew him to Ontario, California, with an initial offer of $1,000 plus expenses, and he later received a further $700.

On set, he says, his suspicions grew when he was told an Israeli commander wanted to meet him, and then saw a very tall man who looked like Cohen. The other recruits were older men in Trump shirts who did not seem like warriors. The moment he was sure came when Morad demonstrated the gun's trigger, a pumped rubber penis, and kept calling it "shmeckel". "He's not going to punk me; I'm going to trick him," Loudermilk said of his decision to stay in character and push every scene further.

He says he also felt a little offended on behalf of the other participants, so he chose to act as their ally. He felt sorry for Aboud, whom he describes as scared and uncomfortable, and tried to stop him quitting. "I'm surprised he didn't figure it out," he said. At the border finale he handed the drone remote to Aboud, grabbed the "butt-gun" and fired it with Morad's help.

After filming, Loudermilk signed a non-disclosure agreement that he says mostly concerned the weapons and of which he was not given a copy. He considers it breached now that the film names him: "It's fair game." In December last year he posted publicly on Facebook and Instagram about eight hours of filming with Cohen, which he says the production never noticed.

The film opened nationwide in the UK on Friday, with a limited US run. Loudermilk, who has not yet seen it, says he welcomes the publicity and hopes Cohen will laugh. "That people would be disgusted is a compliment," he said. "I pulled it off and I was so proud of myself."