Joshua Loudermilk, one of two men apparently discredited by the new Ali G movie Ali G: Who Iz I?, has said that he was in on the joke, but that the film-makers didn’t realise this. This was reported by Qazaqyia.kz citing The Guardian.

Loudermilk, a 54-year-old aspiring actor from North Carolina, has told the Guardian he recognised star Sacha Baron Cohen early in the shoot but continued pretending to be a hard-right Maga sympathiser prepared to defend the US border at all costs.

The movie involves Loudermilk being recruited by another Cohen character, the ex-Mossad terrorist expert Col Erran Morad, to help form a citizens’ warrior force to protect US borders, making use of his top-secret new weapon: a gun disguised as buttocks.

Along with fellow recruit Michael Aboud, the chair of the El Paso county Republican party, Loudermilk joins Morad on a mission to stop the birth on US soil of the baby of a fictional South American drugs kingpin. This involves abducting a woman apparently in labour, abandoning her in a deserted medical facility, kidnapping her newborn child (a lifelike prosthetic) and driving it in a zipped bag to the border in order to deliver it by drone to Mexico.

Aboud is shown taking the decision to drop the child from a great height into Mexico rather than have it touch US soil. He has since called Cohen a “liar” and a “pervert” and expressed his intention to sue. The film repeatedly stresses that both men were “not in on it”.

Loudermilk has told the Guardian he was surprised the production company did not notice social media updates he posted shortly after the shoot in which he named Cohen and expressed his excitement about the project.

But rather than being upset about his involvement, Loudermilk – who recently appeared as Squire Dap in the North Carolina Town of Hudson Fall Dinner Theatre’s production of Camelot – says he welcomes the publicity boost.

“I want to use this to my benefit,” he says. “I would hope Sacha would read this and laugh, like: ‘Hey, you got me!’ I had so much fun creating that character. I was trying to see if I was any good at acting in comedy. And I realised: ‘Oh, I think I’m good at this.’ And that’s what I wanna do for the rest of my life.”

His experience began in September 2025 when Loudermilk spotted a post on Craigslist by a body called the American Citizen Initiative (whose website is no longer active) recruiting “patriotic legal Americans” “concerned about the border crisis” who “believe that illegal immigration is out of control”.

The ad, one of dozens posted across US states simultaneously, invited “real American citizens” to “attend an exclusive, hands-on event experience where you’ll learn the truth about what’s happening on the border and how you can make a difference”. Attendees were promised $300 as well as travel expenses.

“I was like: this seems kind of weird,” says Loudermilk, who describes himself as broadly apolitical. “I don’t really care much about our borders. My mom’s from Ireland.” Recently made redundant, his motivation for responding was primarily financial. “I know rightwing and leftwing organisations have money and will pay people to just hold a sign up. I remember thinking: I wanna get on that gravy train. I want some George Soros money. I’ll pretend to be whatever. 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, mentioned that he had been a preacher and neglected to declare his ambitions to become a comedy actor – in part, he says, out of embarrassment. He then filled in a “silly questionnaire – very obvious, very slanted to the right”.

Loudermilk was then called for a video interview, which involved the identification of left-leaning celebrities, as well as figures including Borat, Cohen’s bumbling Kazakh reporter, who Loudermilk duly named.

He was also asked if he was a Trump supporter. “The funny thing is: not really. He’s just a leader. But I was like: 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 to be a part of this.’

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

Once he arrived, Loudermilk was greeted by security and informed an Israeli commander wanted to meet him. “That was a red flag. Why would Israeli commander be in America? I go in there and immediately I see this really tall guy with this horrible plastic surgery. My first thought was: that looks like Sacha Cohen. But I was like: nah, that can’t be him.”

Loudermilk’s suspicions were further raised, he says, when he met his fellow recruits. “They were old, old, old white guys who were really out of shape. Everyone’s wearing these Trump shirts. They didn’t seem like warriors. I thought: they could probably get better people for this.”

Morad then produced the top-secret weapon.