In the Disney+ movie Luca, who plays Uncle Ugo? The character shows up during the first act and attempts to entertain his nephew, the titular protagonist, but comes across instead as incredibly odd and more than a bit creepy to young Luca. The wonderfully weird Uncle Ugo is voiced by none other than the star of the Borat franchise, Sacha Baron Cohen.
Uncle Ugo arrives at the underwater Paguro household in Luca to support his sea monster brother Lorenzo (Jim Gaffigan) and sister-in-law Daniela (Maya Rudolph). The couple worries that their son, Luca (Jacob Tremblay), plans to explore the mainland, and so they schedule an indefinite vacation with deep-sea denizen Uncle Ugo at the bottom of the Ligurian Sea. When Baron Cohen's character fails to convince Luca about the benefits of living in "the deep" (plenty of whale carcass, lots of time to think), the young sea monster plots to run away with his new pal, Alberto Scorfano (Jack Dylan Grazer). Uncle Ugo's appearance alone will make Disney+ audiences giggle, but it's Baron Cohen's tragicomic voice performance that makes the character especially unique.
As a performer, Baron Cohen is undoubtedly best known for portraying the fictional Kazakh journalist Borat Sagdiyev. In the 2006 mockumentary Borat, he travels to the United States and tries to learn about American customs from people who don't initially realize that they're being recorded or that he was putting on an act. Baron Cohen reprised his role for the 2020 Amazon Prime sequel Borat Subsequent Moviefilm, in which the title character roams about the United States with his daughter, Tutar (Maria Bakalova). Borat hopes to offer Tutar as a gift to prominent U.S. politicians, including former Vice President Mike Pence and Donald Trump's now-infamous lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, who previously worked as the United States Associate Attorney General during the '80s. As Borat, Baron Cohen adopts an off-kilter vocal pattern, much like he does with Luca's Uncle Ugo.
Aside from the Borat franchise, Baron Cohen has appeared in several high-profile movies and TV productions. After headlining his own series, Da Ali G Show, he later appeared in Curb Your Enthusiasm and voiced Jacob in The Simpsons season 21. In 2018, he portrayed various fictional characters in the Showtime mockumentary series Who Is America? and then starred as the legendary Mossad agent Eli Cohen in the 2019 Netflix miniseries The Spy, all a far cry from Disney+'s Luca.
Baron Cohen also starred in the mockumentary movies Brüno and The Dictator, however Disney+ and Pixar fans may know him for roles in 2010s films such as Les Misérables (M. Thénardier), Alice Through the Looking Glass (Time), and The Trial of the Chicago 7 (for which he earned a Golden Globe nomination for his portrayal of activist Abbie Hoffman). With Luca, Baron Cohen adds some extra comedy relief that not only benefits the narrative but will also entertain general audiences of all demographics. In Luca's post-credits scene, Uncle Ugo muses about his place in the world and unnerves a nearby fish, presumably Guiseppe from the first act, who seems entirely perplexed by the experience. It's a comedic punctuation point to the movie as a whole, and also functions as a wink and a nod to audiences who know that Uncle Ugo is voiced by the same man who created Borat.