Showtime President and CEO David Nevins wants to stay in the Sacha Baron Cohen business.
The premium cable network boss told reporters during the Television Critics Association press tour on Monday that he’s itching to do a Season 2 of Cohen’s “Who Is America?” — which premiered last month to 1 million viewers, after being secretly in the works at Showtime for over a year.
“I’m dying to bring it back, you know,” Nevins said. “There’ll be a process and I don’t know that I’ll be making an announcements, but, you know, he had me at ‘Hello.’”
“I think he is one of the great, original comic performers of our time and I knew doing a show with him was a risk, but it’s a risk I’m really glad that we took,” Nevins continued. “And I think what he’s achieved is remarkable.”
When asked if he felt like the backlash against the show has been a blessing or a curse for Showtime, Nevins laughed and replied, “I think it’s been helpful.”
“Everything we did about the show, the whole way we launched it was incredibly unconventional,” Nevins said. “We kept secret that the show was in process for more than a year.”
Baron Cohen duped Sarah Palin, Bernie Sanders, Ted Koppel, Howard Dean, disgraced Senate candidate Roy Moore, ex-congressman Joe Walsh, and former Vice President Dick Cheney into appearing on Season 1 of the show. Well, he reportedly shot pieces with all of them.
You can read what Nevins told TheWrap regarding the chances some of Baron Cohen’s targets don’t make it on the show here.
“Who Is America?” airs Sundays at 10/8c on Showtime.