‘He’s not going to punk me. I’ll trick him’: Ali G: Who Iz I? stooge says he was in on joke but didn’t tell Sacha Baron Cohen

Joshua Loudermilk, one of two men seemingly misled by the new Ali G movie Ali G: Who Iz I?, states he understood the prank from the beginning, but the filmmakers missed this fact.

Loudermilk, a 54-year-old aspiring actor from North Carolina, informed The Guardian that he recognized star Sacha Baron Cohen early in filming. He continued to act as a staunch Maga sympathizer ready to defend the US border at all costs.

The film depicts Loudermilk being enlisted by another Cohen character, former Mossad terror expert Col Erran Morad. Their task: to help establish a citizen militia for border protection, using Loudermilk's supposed top-secret weapon, a gun disguised as buttocks.

Alongside Michael Aboud, chairman of the El Paso county Republican party and fellow recruit, Loudermilk joins Morad on a mission to prevent the birth of a fictional South American drug cartel leader's baby on US soil. This involves abducting a woman appearing to be in labor, leaving her at an empty medical facility, taking her newborn (a realistic prosthetic), and driving it in a zipped bag to the border for delivery to Mexico via drone.

The film shows Aboud deciding to drop the child from a significant height into Mexico to avoid it touching US land. Aboud has since labeled Cohen a "liar" and "pervert" and intends to sue. The movie repeatedly emphasizes that neither man was "in on it."

Loudermilk told The Guardian he was surprised the production company overlooked his social media posts shortly after filming, where he named Cohen and shared his enthusiasm for the project.

Far from being upset by his involvement, Loudermilk, who recently played Squire Dap in a local production of Camelot, welcomes the publicity. "I want to use this to my benefit," he states. "I’d hope Sacha would read this and laugh, like: ‘Hey, you got me!’ I had so much fun creating that character. I was testing my comedic acting skills. I realized, ‘Oh, I think I’m good at this.’ That’s what I want to do for the rest of my life."

His involvement began in September 2025 after spotting a Craigslist ad from the American Citizen Initiative (its website is now defunct) seeking "patriotic legal Americans" concerned about the "out of control" border crisis. The ad invited "real American citizens" to an "exclusive, hands-on event" to learn the truth about border issues and how to contribute, offering $300 plus travel expenses.

“I thought: this seems a bit odd,” says Loudermilk, who considers himself broadly apolitical. “I don’t care much about borders. My mom’s from Ireland.”

Recently laid off, his primary motivation was financial. “I know rightwing and leftwing organizations have money and will pay people to hold a sign. I thought: I want some of that. I want George Soros money. I’ll pretend to be anything. Just let me feed my family. It could have been save the whales and I would have done it.”

In his application, Loudermilk fabricated hard-right views, claimed to be a preacher, and omitted his aspirations for comedy acting, partly out of embarrassment. He then completed a "silly questionnaire – very obvious, very slanted to the right.”

Loudermilk was then called for a video interview, which included identifying left-leaning celebrities and figures like Borat, Cohen’s clueless Kazakh reporter, whom Loudermilk correctly identified.

He was also asked about supporting Trump. "The funny thing is: not really. He’s just a leader. But I thought: I’m going to be an improv actor, so I said: ‘Yeah, I support Trump!’ Next thing I know they’re like, ‘We want you to come out and be a part of this.’

The company flew him to Ontario, California, offering $1,000 initially, plus food and expenses, on top of which Loudermilk received an additional $700. “It was all very secretive. They frisked me and I got in a truck to go to a karate studio.”

Upon arrival, Loudermilk was met by security and informed an Israeli commander wished to meet him. “That was a red flag. Why would an Israeli commander be in America? I went in and immediately saw this really tall guy with awful plastic surgery. My first thought was: that looks like Sacha Cohen. But I told myself: no, that can’t be him.”

Loudermilk’s suspicions grew, he says, upon meeting his fellow recruits. “They were old, old, old white guys who were really out of shape. Everyone wore Trump shirts. They didn’t look like warriors. I thought: they could probably find better people for this.”

Morad then presented the supposedly secret weapon: a large, strap-on bottom from which bullets were fired from the anus. Initially, Loudermilk questioned its practicality. “I kept thinking: no one’s going to wear that thing because your butt’s going to look abnormally large. No one has a butt like that. Are you going to put a butt on top of a butt? You can’t run in that. And you’d have to wear some really big khaki pants.”

He volunteered to test the weapon first. Morad demonstrated the trigger, operated by a attached rubber penis. “And he kept calling it ‘shmeckel.’ I thought: that’s Sacha Cohen. At that moment, I knew it.

“And I thought: oh no, I can’t break character. I have to go along with it. So, whatever he did, I decided to take it a step further. He’s not going to punk me; I’m going to trick him. So I decided to get into character and just have a good time because they’re paying me.”

As the plot grew more "ridiculous," Loudermilk says, so did his enjoyment. During a scene where he, Morad, and Aboud assist in delivering the (prosthetic) baby, the three are covered in fake excrement. “This big blast of pooping pap,” Loudermilk recalls, but he was reassured after accidentally tasting some of the fluid. “I thought: ‘This doesn’t taste bad.’ So I just kind of hung in there. It was disgusting, but I was having fun.”

At the climax at the Mexican border, Loudermilk recalls handing the drone's remote control to Aboud, “because that was boring. It was ridiculous – they’re not flying a real baby.” Instead, he “wanted to have fun with Sacha,” so he grabbed the “butt-gun,” shouting about the need for defense, and eventually fired, aided by Morad, who helped operate the penis trigger.

Loudermilk doesn't defend Aboud's decision to endanger the baby by dropping it from the drone but expresses some sympathy for his unwitting co-star.

“I felt sorry for the poor fella. Because I’m all-in and he’s just kind of following me around like in a daze, like: what’s happening? He was scared to death, and obviously very uncomfortable, bless his heart.

“I’d never met the guy before, but [at times] it felt like he was totally freaking out on me. So I had to make him believe that I believed all this. So I would tell him, ‘You’re being a wimp, man. Our freedom is on the line.’ I kept trying to keep him from quitting.

“But I’m surprised he didn’t figure it out. Like, come on, Michael – why would they recruit you to defend our border? Think about it.”

Loudermilk admits his decision to maintain the pretense of being far-right after realizing the project's true nature was partly because he “was a little offended. Like: really? You’re picking on these Americans that aren’t the brightest. You’re gonna make fun of them and they’re not gonna know any better. So I decided I needed to be their ally, even though I’m not that way.”

At the end of filming, Loudermilk signed a non-disclosure agreement at the production company's request. He wasn't given a copy and states it primarily concerned the top-secret weapons. “They came up to me after I was done and said, ‘Oh, you did so well!’ I said, ‘You get what you need? Can I talk about it?’ They said, ‘Oh no, not yet. Especially the butt-gun.’”

Loudermilk considers any such terms breached now that the film is released and mentions him by name: “It’s fair game.” He adds that, after shooting, he felt some regret about not revealing he had figured it out. “I felt a little bad. And that’s why I thought: I should make a little post.”

In December of last year, Loudermilk posted three times on his public Facebook page about "eight hours of intense filming one on one with Sasha [sic] Cohen," and twice on his public Instagram.

“But they never saw it. And the fact they missed that makes it even better to me. So I guess it’s on them.”

Last week, film representatives again confirmed to The Guardian that Loudermilk was not involved in the prank. They have not yet responded to a further follow-up question on this.

The film was released nationwide in the UK on Friday, and in limited release in the US. Loudermilk, who has not yet watched it, says he is unconcerned about potential backlash from those upset by his actions.

“That people would be disgusted is a compliment. Oh, I really did a good job, huh! I pulled it off and I was so proud of myself.”