Sacha Baron Cohen Says Borat 2 Co-Star Maria Bakalova Deserves An Oscar
Sacha Baron Cohen thinks his co-star Maria Bakalova should win an Oscar for her performance in Borat 2.
Borat: Subsequent Moviefilm, the follow-up to the outrageous 2006 original, sees a hapless Borat (Baron Cohen) visit the United States with his 15-year-old daughter Tutar, played by Bakalova.
As anyone who’s seen the film can attest, the pair get up to some wild hijinks to say the least, and though some moments will make you cringe, the commitment to their roles is never less than 100%.
Speaking on Good Morning America alongside the 24-year-old actress, 49-year-old Baron Cohen chatted about how well the pair worked together, citing her talents. ‘She is an incredible actress,’ Cohen said. ‘We interviewed 600 young women from all around the world and she’s hilarious.’
‘She is one of the most courageous actors in history. If she doesn’t get nominated for an Oscar then that’s a travesty,’ he added.
He also said that Bakalova is ‘hilarious’ and has ‘the capacity to deliver a scene and make you cry, which is what got her the part in the movie.’
Describing her uniqueness and suitability for the role, Baron Cohen added, ‘She’s a one of a kind. Imagine coming to America for the first time – she’d barely been out of Bulgaria – and suddenly she’s playing a role with real people in some terrifying situations and she got through it all,’ he commended.
10 months agoBut that doesn’t mean things went without a hiccup. During the uncomfortable scene where Bakalova appears alone with former New York Mayor and Donald Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani, he admits he was ‘quite concerned for her’ throughout the weird hotel room encounter.
Despite there being cameras in the room, Baron Cohen was also nearby, stating he’d ‘built a hideaway that I was hiding in during that entire scene,’ and telling GMA viewers he was ‘monitoring it by text.’ And as a sign of the actress’s resilience, she is adamant that she always felt safe in the controlled environment.
The Borat sequel arrived on Amazon Prime late last week and has already made a huge impact in the streaming world. Not only did the now infamous scene with Giuliani go viral, but the production was almost sued by the family of a Holocaust survivor, after the late Judith Dim Evans featured in a third-act scene of the movie.
The film, released exclusively onto Amazon’s video streaming platform, has been widely lauded, not just for its social commentary and exposé in regards to uncovering some of the more outdated and backwards attitudes in America, but in raising awareness of the Holocaust, the dangerousness of its denial, and a number of antisemitic tropes that sadly still exist in 2020.
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Topics: Film and TV, Borat, Borat 2, Borat Subsequent Moviefilm, comedy, Film, Holocaust, Jewish, movies
