Who Is America? makeup artist: Making Sacha Baron Cohen unrecognizable was "hard, so "we had to obliterate his eyebrows"

Vulture

"Shave ‘em off in order to get a blank slate," veteran prosthetics and makeup artist Tony Gardner says of Cohen's eyebrows. "They sucked in the anatomy of his face. Taking somebody’s eyebrows off is difficult, obviously, but it allowed us to have a fuller range of characters to experiment with." Gardner adds: "His eyebrows are iconic and instantly identifiable. His eyebrows are like Charlie Chaplin’s mustache. It’s the hardest thing in the world to hide. Sacha is also very tall with a British accent. He doesn’t blend in easily. We realized early on that his dream of wearing less wasn’t really an option. We tested some characters in fewer prosthetics, like Gio, the Italian playboy character. We tried only using forehead prosthetics and hair pieces, and it didn’t change Sacha’s silhouette enough to disguise him. Same with Erran with a wig, bald cap, and skin tone. Once Sacha stood up and started walking, everyone around him wasn’t fooled. So we had to work in broader strokes from that point on."