King of comedy Sacha Baron Cohen talks about getting in shape for his new role as Mephisto in Marvel’s Ironheart, how fitness is in his blood and just why he can still rock a mankini
If there’s one thing you don’t necessarily associate with Sacha Baron Cohen, it’s fitness. The man behind Borat, Ali G, and General Aladeen is far better known for fearless satire and surreal comedy than for six-pack abs. But when he was cast in a major Marvel role, transformation wasn’t optional. The character demanded not just sharp wit, but a sharp physique to match.
Enter celebrity trainer Alfonso Moretti, the man behind the scenes who has shaped Hollywood royalty and Fortune 500 execs alike. His minimalist, brutally effective methods would soon become the key to one of the most surprising body transformations in showbiz.
But Sacha’s first challenge when taking on the role wasn’t physical – it was logistical. How to get into superhero shape in three weeks. Frustrated, he reached out to Matthew McConaughey, who passed along Alfonso’s number. “I called Matthew and asked for help. After asking who I was and how I’d gotten his number, he finally gave me Alfonso’s contact,” Sacha jokes.
Alfonso, aka The Angry Trainer, had a well-established reputation for transforming physiques to nigh’ on impossible deadlines, using a no-nonsense, gimmick-free approach to training and nutrition.
Alfonso’s opening move? A FaceTime session and an immediate request for Sacha to strip down to his underwear. “He said, ‘Hold on, you haven’t even taken me out for dinner,'” Alfonso laughs. But Sacha was all in.
Dictator of Discipline
Alfonso’s approach boiled down to one word: consistency. No marathon workouts, no extreme dieting. Just show up every day. “Fitness is like saving money,” Alfonso explains. “It’s not about dropping a grand all at once – it’s about putting in a dollar every single day.”
For Sacha, this meant 25-minute workouts that were sustainable. Even while filming, the workouts happened. “In the past, I would’ve thought you needed hour-long sessions,” Sacha admits. “But the short sessions made it so much easier to stay consistent – even with the demands of being on set.”
The first assignment: 100 push-ups a day. With guidance via Alfonso’s Beverly Hills Workout app and live FaceTime sessions, Sacha saw results fast.
“To be fair to Sacha, he wasn’t out of shape. But visually, he didn’t have that ‘in-shape’ look,” Alfonso recalls. “He looked more like a ruler – straight up and down. The studio was even thinking about fitting him with prosthetic muscles.”
“I’m not going to take ultimate credit for this,” insists Alfonso. “Sacha had a good base to start with. He has good muscularity: the shape of his muscles, his insertions (where the muscle fibres attach to the bones via tendons), the length of his attachments – he was like an athlete in hiding. But we had a very short timeframe to achieve the look the studio wanted.”
The speed of the comic’s transformation may also owe something to his genes and a previous history of workouts that combined mixed martial arts with swimming in shark-infested waters off the coast of Australia.
“My dad played a lot of rugby in Cardiff growing up, my mum was a champion swimmer,” Sacha tells Men’s Fitness. “Liesel, my grandmother, taught exercise classes until the age of 99 and swam in the sea every day. Her husband, who was the shot-put champion of Saxony, Germany, jogged and lifted weights right up until the end.”
“For the past 14 years, I’ve been kickboxing with my incredible trainer, Ed Chow,” adds Sacha. “He’s a remarkable fighter who I’m sure could easily kill someone who pissed him off, so I always made sure to pay him on time. During the pandemic, while living in Sydney and Perth, I took up daily sea swimming – there’s nothing like the extra adrenaline rush that comes from knowing you might meet a shark with a penchant for kosher cuisine.”
From Ali G to Alpha G
By the two-week mark, Sacha’s wardrobe team had to spend $5,000 altering costumes because his body had changed so significantly. He was leaner, stronger, and fitter than ever before.
“We kept it simple,” Alfonso says. “Bodyweight exercises, pull-ups, push-ups, squats. Minimal equipment. Sacha is very strong – he can do 10-12 solid pull-ups and chin-ups no problem, which for someone 6ft 3in is rare. But by no means would you have looked at him and said, ‘He works out.’”
Beyond the physical transformation, Sacha’s mindset underwent a major shift. Fitness became a daily non-negotiable – not because of vanity, but because of how it made him feel. “Instead of lying in bed overthinking, and staring at my phone, I get up, jump on FaceTime, and train with Alfonso. It sets a positive tone for the whole day and I don’t even have to look up from my phone!”
Diet wasn’t complicated either. Alfonso professes to being neither a nutritionist nor a dietician but his straightforward approach to training is echoed in his fuelling advice. “High fibre, low sugar, plenty of protein – nothing fancy, nothing extreme. We didn’t count calories. We focused on smart choices,” he says.
“Sacha didn’t have any contraindications. He wasn’t taking any medication. He isn’t diabetic – he was the same with the nutrition as he was with his training, 100% committed. He could be filming for 15 hours, been up since five in the morning, finish at nine at night and he’d still send me a text: ‘Do you have time for a workout?’”
“If he was in a hotel saying ‘there’s no equipment,’ I’d send him online links to get resistance bands, in the meantime I’d show him a bodyweight workout using the chairs in his room or his luggage. At the end of the day a weight is a weight. He never complained. Never gave up. Ever,” Alfonso says. “That’s what made the difference.”
Nice! High-five for consistency
Alfonso also considers himself fortunate to be at a stage in his career where he can choose to work only with clients who are serious and fully committed. “They’re all 100% committed because I put 100% of myself into it,” he explains. “I wake up at 1 a.m. or 4 a.m. to train some clients. If I’m getting up at 4 a.m. for you, you better be just as committed as I am. I’m as dedicated to the process as you are.”
He draws a clear parallel between fitness and any other career. “People say they don’t like going to work, but they do it for the pay cheque. Well, your health and fitness are your pay cheque. Whether it’s how your body looks or how you feel, that’s the reward,” Alfonso says.
The Angry Trainer also challenges common misconceptions about what a workout must look like. “Studies show that less than 10 minutes a day, four days a week, can improve your health markers and reduce overall mortality. Ten minutes! But because trainers can’t sell that – it’s not flashy enough. So instead, they sell hour-long sessions or 12-week programs, which can feel daunting.”
Alfonso suggests that a more manageable approach is possible. “If I told you we could do this in 20 minutes, four days a week, it would be manageable for most people. And honestly, 20 minutes goes by so fast—people spend more time scrolling on their phones without noticing it.”
When clients claim they don’t have time to work out, Alfonso has a blunt response. “I just ignore them,” he says. “Instead, I talk about Netflix or popular shows like Stranger Things. If they start to tell me they’ve watch those shows then I stop and just tell them; ‘well in that case you DO have time to train.’”
Alfonso even combines exercise with his own TV time at home, using an Airdyne bike and an incline/decline abdominal bench. “While I watch TV, I’m not just sitting – I’m moving. You could do four sets of 10 push-ups, some leg raises, and lunges all while catching your favourite show. Ten to fifteen minutes – that’s it. If you have time to watch TV, you have time to exercise. Saying otherwise is just an excuse.”
Such is the strength of Alfonso’s argument and the measure of the gains he’s helped his clients achieve, that the likes of Sacha Baron Cohen continue to follow his training routine long after the director announces ‘that’s a wrap!’.
“My mindset around fitness has definitely evolved,” says Sacha. “My favourite exercise is X-ups. I’ve always found core workouts challenging, as I’m blessed with the core strength of an arthritic jellyfish, so being able to do them now is a reminder of how far I’ve come.”
“I now believe that just 20 to 30 minutes of movement a day can make a real difference – and it’s something anyone can fit into their routine, especially celebrities with personal assistants to do all the boring stuff like shopping and attending friends’ funerals. So, no excuses!”
And crucially, can Sacha still rock a Mankini? “Of course,” he replies. “A little like Patrick Bateman in ‘American Psycho,’ at any given time I have a closet with 50 identical mankinis hanging up, and am always wearing one under my clothes. I never know when I may be asked to make a personal appearance as Borat, for which my rate is surprisingly reasonable.”
