Brittny Gastineau says she was in on the joke when she appeared in Sacha Baron Cohen’s No. 1 comedy Bruno.

In the movie, Bruno interviews Gastineau, 26, and shows her a photo of a sonogram which he says is of Jamie Lynn Spears’ unborn fetus. He then asks her if the fetus looks deformed and if she thinks Spears should abort or keep it. “Abort it!” Gastineau replies.

“I was joking around,” Gastineau now tells Usmagazine.com. “I was spoofing myself.”

When she was first asked to be interviewed by the faux Austrian journalist, “I didn’t know it was him.”

She says she was contacted because her E! show Gastineau Girls is broadcast in 54 different countries in Europe. “I was confused; I thought maybe it was still playing over there,” she says. “So I was like, ‘Ok.’”

“When I got there, I saw him, and I obviously knew it was him,” Gastineau tells Us. “I was like, ‘Oh, this is funny. This is a joke.’ I just went along with it.”

She says her friends and family knew she was kidding as well.

“Everyone knew I wasn’t serious when I said, ‘Abort a baby!’” she tells Us. “I was just playing along. Anyone who is going to see Bruno knows it’s a comedy, and I was totally joking around! I was not serious.”

She says she’s seen the movie and “thought it was amazing.” Cohen, she adds, “is a genius.”

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More bad news for the outrageous comedy Brüno — Ukraine’s Culture Ministry has banned it, calling the Sacha Baron Cohen hit movie “immoral.”

So what is it that the ministry finds so displeasing? The Associated Press reports that the depictions of sexual organs, homosexual intercourse and language are deemed obscene and improper by Ukraine.

We guess not everybody understands Sacha’s particular brand of in-your-face humor.

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Sacha Baron Cohen makes a living out of outlandish characters like Borat and Brüno who put people in uncomfortable situations, but this time around he seems to have upset the wrong people — members of an organization called Al Aqsa Martyers Brigades — by calling one of their former members a “terrorist leader.”

Sacha interviewed Ayman Abu Aita in Brüno and called him a “terrorist leader” of the organization Ayman claims he left years ago. The group has released a statement to World Net Daily, saying Ayman was tricked into appearing in the film.

“According to what we checked there was no meeting about the real context of the film. This was a dirty use of our brother, Aiman [sic], and we don’t accept that the name of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades is part of the movie … We reserve the right to respond in a way we find suitable against this man [Baron Cohen].”

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Sacha Baron Cohen’s Bruno (in theaters today) has received mixed reactions from critics.

The controversial comedy — which features Cohen as a flamboyant Austrian fashion designer — has been deemed everything from “mean-spirited” to “brilliant.”

“Assuming outlandish guises, gulling the gullible and piling on the transgressive jokes, including plenty of gay-panic-inducing antics, is Sacha Baron Cohen’s shtick,” writes James Verniere in the Boston Herald. “Well, the shtick is getting a bit short, already.

“The result, directed once again by Larry Charles and co-scripted by Cohen, is like an Austin Powers movie without the characters, plot or story line. That’ll be 10 bucks, sucker,” continues the Herald critic.

Adds CNN: “Perhaps inspired by another Cohen creation, Ali G, he sets out to make a celebrity interview show — but sadly, the only dupes ignorant enough to participate are American Idol judges and presidential candidates [Ron Paul is inadvertently cast in a sex tape].”

The New York Times calls Cohen a “brilliant slapstick artist and a master of voices — Bruno’s mock-German and scrambled American idioms are in some ways even more crazily spot-on than Borat’s gibberish.”

But the paper isn’t won over by the movie.

“In spite of Mr. Baron Cohen’s…high-level skills and keen low-comic instincts, Bruno is a lazy piece of work that panders more than it provokes,” writes critic A.O. Scott.

The The Hollywood Reporter calls Cohen’s ambushes “too often…mean-spirited.

“We sense, as we never did with Borat, the comic behind the character. Especially when his accent keeps changing — from an unconvincing Austrian to his own British and even to a whisper of Borat himself,” it writes.

But Entertainment Weekly grades the film “A-” and says it’s “funnier than Borat.”

“The entire film is in seriously questionable taste, and there will, of course, be debates about what’s staged and what’s not. Those looking for purity in satire should stay away. Yet there’s a vision at work in Bruno — the movie is a toxic dart aimed at the spangly new heart of American hypocrisy: our fake-tolerant, fake-charitable, fake-liberated-yet-still madly-closeted fame culture. Bruno ends on a note of scandalously funny out-and-proud triumph.”

Variety bets the flick will open to high box office figures, calling it “undeniably funny, outrageous and boundary-pushing.”

But the controversial content will turn off some moviegoers, the magazine points out.

“There is also a pronounced nasty streak to the innumerable provocations staged by the title character that curdles the laughs and wears out the … Austrian fashionista’s welcome within the picture’s brief 82-minute running time,” Variety wrote.

Source, Bauer-Griffin

Sacha Baron Cohen was left fearing for his life after a cage-fight mob threatened to kill him as he filmed his new movie Bruno.

The British funnyman was shooting scenes while in character as the outrageous Austrian fashion journalist hosting a real cage fight in Arkansas.

The star was told he didn’t have to worry about his safety, so he challenged the booing audience to a fight – but was confronted by a muscleman within seconds.

Cohen was scared for his life as the mob urged the fighter to “kill him”, but he managed to escape through a secret door.
The actor says, “There were 2,000 drunk good old boys baying for blood. I was told not to worry, it would take someone two minutes to climb in the cage. The audience booed me and I challenged them to a fight, thinking I was safe. Then a 6 feet 8 inches steroid-ed guy catapulted over the fence in two seconds and stood in front of me as the crowd cheered, ‘Kill him, kill him’.”

Source, Bauer-Griffin

Sacha Baron Cohen seems appropriately dressed as a bull outside La Plaza de Las Ventas bull ring in Madrid as he promotes the premiere of his latest film Bruno.  The nipples/balls freak me out!

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More pics after the jump…if you dare!

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