Sacha Baron Cohen, at left in character as Bruno, stormed a fashion show catwalk in Milan on Friday. A model continues walking, at right, while an official chases after the British comic actor. (Filippo Monteforte/AFP/Getty Images)

Outrageous comic actor Sacha Baron Cohen found himself in hot water again on Friday, after storming onto the catwalk at a fashion show in Milan.

Cohen, in costume and in character as usual, leaped onto the runway during Spanish designer Agatha Ruiz De La Prada's show in Milan and strutted around before security chased, captured and turned him over to police, reported Italy's ANSA news agency.

The Cambridge University-educated star was detained at a police station for about half an hour, during which someone fetched his passport to vouch for him. He was released without charge.

The British star is filming a new movie based on another of his over-the-top characters: Austrian fashion reporter Bruno. The mockumentary Bruno: Delicious Journeys Through America for the Purpose of Making Heterosexual Males Visibly Uncomfortable in the Presence of a Gay Foreigner in a Mesh T-Shirt is slated to hit theatres in May 2009.

Fashionistas wary after earlier stunt

Fashion houses were put on alert this week after Cohen and his camera crew snuck by security into the backstage area of Italian label Iceberg before its show on Wednesday. His crew started filming a black-clad actor who began screaming and throwing himself at the clothing racks, footage of which was later broadcast on Italian television.

On Thursday, security guards were apparently successful at blocking Cohen and his crew from entering the Dsquared fashion show of Toronto-born, Milan-based fashion designers and twin brothers Dean and Dan Caten.

In December, Cohen told the U.K.'s Daily Telegraph newspaper that he was retiring his previous characters Ali G (the dim-witted hip hop interviewer) and Borat (the uncouth reporter from Kazakhstan). Because they have become too well-known, he was increasingly unable to dupe new interviewees, said Cohen, who is now based in Los Angeles with actress Isla Fisher and their daughter.

Famed for outlandish interviews

Cohen rose to fame with the former hit cable TV program Da Ali G Show, which showed him conducting interviews — in the guise of his outrageous characters — with unsuspecting subjects, including famous faces like Newt Gingrich and Donald Trump.

His characters usually offered up offensive comments or questions that either left the interviewees squirming or provoked them to make eye-opening, moronic or silly statements of their own.

His 2006 mockumentary Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan became a cult hit, despite sparking lawsuits from some of his embarrassed interviewees. He has also battled with real Kazakhstan officials, who object to Cohen's ridiculous, anti-Semitic, misogynistic, homophobic Kazakh character.

During filming of Borat in 2005, organizers of a Virginia rodeo said Cohen nearly provoked a riot with his appearance, in which the actor made subversive comments about the U.S. involvement in the Iraq War and sang a mangled version of the Star Spangled Banner.

His other film credits include Madagascar, Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby and Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.