Sacha Noam Baron Cohen was born on the 13th of October 1971 into an English Ashkenazi Jewish family in the Hammersmith area of London, yet his life would become defined not by his own face, but by the hundreds of faces he wore to hide it. His mother, Daniella, was born in British Mandatory Palestine to German Jewish parents who had fled the Nazis, while his father, Gerald, grew up in the Welsh town of Pontypridd before becoming a clothing store owner. This dual heritage of survival and assimilation formed the bedrock of a man who would later use comedy to expose the very prejudices that had once threatened his family. Baron Cohen studied history at Christ's College, Cambridge, where he wrote his thesis on the role of Jewish activists in the American civil rights movement, a subject that would eerily foreshadow his future career of using satire to confront social injustice. He was a member of the Labour youth movement Habonim Dror and played the cello, but it was his time studying under master-clown Philippe Gaulier in Paris that truly unlocked his potential. Gaulier, who described him as a good clown full of spirit, taught him that comedy was not about being funny, but about being truthful in the most uncomfortable ways possible. Without Gaulier, Baron Cohen later admitted, he doubted he would have had any success in his field, a sentiment that would prove prophetic as he moved from fashion modeling to hosting local cable television in Windsor.
The Chav Who Stole The Show
The character of Ali G first appeared on the British television show The 11 O'Clock Show on the 8th of September 1998, marking the beginning of a career that would redefine the boundaries of satire. Ali G was a fictional stereotype of a white British suburban male chav who imitated urban black British hip hop culture and British Jamaican culture, speaking in rude boy-style English with borrowed expressions from Jamaican Patois. Hailing from Staines, a suburban town in Surrey, Ali G became so popular that GQ named Baron Cohen comedian of the year just one year after the show premiered. The character was so successful that it spawned Da Ali G Show, which won the BAFTA for Best Comedy in 2001, and later a feature film, Ali G Indahouse, in 2002. The genius of Ali G lay in the method of his interviews, where Baron Cohen would enter the interview area dressed as Ali G, carrying equipment while acting like an inconspicuous crew member. The crew would be accompanied by a man in a suit and tie, leading the subject to believe that this was the person who would interview them. Baron Cohen, as Ali G, would sit down to ask the interviewee some preliminary questions to give them the impression that this was a test run before the well-dressed man conducted the real interview. This continued until a few moments before the cameras started filming, revealing the suited man as the director and Ali G as the interviewer, granting Baron Cohen the element of surprise as the interviewee would be less likely to opt out of the interview so close to its start. This technique allowed him to interview notable figures, including politicians, who were completely unaware that Ali G, rather than being a real interviewer, was a comedic character.The Kazakh Journalist And The Truth
The character of Borat Sagdiyev was first developed for short skits on F2F on Granada Talk TV in the UK that Baron Cohen presented in 1996 and 1997, with the character at this time being known as Alexi Krickler. The character remained dormant while Baron Cohen concentrated on his Ali G persona, but with the subsequent success of Ali G, Baron Cohen revisited his Borat character. Borat's sense of humour derives from his mocking of society through outrageous sociocultural viewpoints, his deadpan violation of social taboos and use of vulgar language and behaviour. The film Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan was screened at the 2006 Toronto International Film Festival and released in the United Kingdom on the 2nd of November 2006, in the United States on the 3rd of November 2006 and Australia on the 23rd of November 2006. The film follows Sagdiyev as he and his colleague Azamat Bagatov travel the US to produce a documentary about life in the country, as all the while Sagdiyev attempts to enter into marriage with celebrity Pamela Anderson. The film is a mockumentary which includes interviews with various Americans that poke fun at American culture, as well as sexism, racism, homophobia, antisemitism and jingoism. It debuted at the No. 1 spot in the US, taking in an estimated 26.4 million dollars in just 837 theatres averaging 31,600 dollars per theatre. Baron Cohen won the 2007 Golden Globe for Best Actor , Musical or Comedy, his sixth such award, and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay on the 23rd of January 2007. He shared his nomination with the film's co-writers, Ant Hines, Peter Baynham, Dan Mazer and Todd Phillips. The character was brought back on a 2018 appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live and appears in the 2020 sequel Borat Subsequent Moviefilm, for which he won another Golden Globe Award, as well as the 2022 Kennedy Center Honors where he did a standup routine as Borat for the induction of U2.The Fashion Victim And The Dictator
Another alter ego Sacha Baron Cohen performed as is Brüno, a flamboyantly gay Austrian fashion show presenter who often lures his unwitting subjects into making provocative statements and engaging in embarrassing behaviour, as well as leading them to contradict themselves, often in the same interview. Brüno's main comedic satire pertains to the vacuity and inanity of the fashion and clubbing world. Brüno asks the subjects to answer yes or no questions with either Vassup or Ich don't think so, these are occasionally substituted with Ach, ja or Nicht, nicht. In one segment on Da Ali G Show, he encouraged his guest to answer questions with either Keep them in the ghetto or Train to Auschwitz. In May 2009, at the MTV Movie Awards, Baron Cohen appeared as Brüno wearing a white angel costume, a white jockstrap, white go-go boots and white wings and did an aerial stunt where he dropped from a height using wires onto Eminem. Baron Cohen landed with his face on Eminem's crotch and with his crotch in Eminem's face, prompting Eminem to leave the venue with fellow rappers D12. Eminem later admitted to staging the stunt with Baron Cohen. After an intense bidding war that included such Hollywood powerhouses as DreamWorks, Sony, and 20th Century Fox, Universal Pictures won and paid a reported 42.5 million dollars for the film rights to a collection of interviews Baron Cohen performed as the character Brüno. To create these interviews a number of shill companies and websites were created to draw potential interviewees by creating an illusion of legitimacy. The film was released in July 2009. Baron Cohen's 2012 film, The Dictator, was described by its press as the heroic story of a dictator who risked his life to ensure that democracy would never come to the country he so lovingly oppressed. Baron Cohen played Admiral General Aladeen, a dictator from a fictional country called the Republic of Wadiya. Borat and Brüno film director Larry Charles directed the film. The main target of the film's satire was Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, who was still alive when the film was written. The producers of the film were concerned it would anger Gaddafi, possibly even resulting in a terrorist attack, so they released deliberate misinformation saying that the film was loosely based on a romance novel written by former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.The Man Who Spilled The Ashes
On the 26th of February 2012, Baron Cohen claimed he was banned from attending the 84th Academy Awards in his role as Admiral General Aladeen but the rumour was denied by the Academy, saying we haven't banned him, he is lying but made it clear that Cohen is not welcome to use the red carpet as a platform for a promotional stunt. Baron Cohen eventually appeared at the awards' red carpet with a pair of uniformed female bodyguards, holding an urn which he claimed was filled with the ashes of Kim Jong-il. The ashes, which Baron Cohen admitted to Howard Stern on the Tuesday, the 8th of May 2012 episode of The Howard Stern Show were flour, were accidentally spilt onto Ryan Seacrest. This incident was just one of many controversies that followed his career. At the 2006 UK premiere of Borat at Leicester Square he arrived in a cart pulled by a mule and a number of Kazakh women, announcing: Good evening, gentleman and prostitutes. After this, I stay in a hotel in King's Cross. We will all drink, wrestle with no clothes on and shoot dogs from the window. Two of the three University of South Carolina students who appear in Borat sued the filmmakers, alleging that they were duped into signing release forms while drunk and that false promises were made that the footage was for a documentary that would never be screened in the US. On the 11th of December 2006 a Los Angeles judge denied the pair a restraining order to remove them from the film. The lawsuit was dismissed in February 2007. On the 30th of April 2010 Palestinian Christian grocer Ayman Abu Aita filed a lawsuit against Baron Cohen. In the film Brüno, Abu Aita was described as a member of Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades. Abu Aita's lawsuit stated that he had been defamed by false accusations that he was a terrorist in the movie Brüno, adding that, though he had been a member of Fatah, he had never been a member of Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade and was a non-violent activist and a board member of Holy Land Trust, a non-profit. He had agreed to the interview under the impression it was a documentary about the daily life of Palestinians. Aita included David Letterman in the suit based on comments made during a the 7th of July 2009 appearance by Baron Cohen on the Late Show with David Letterman in which he claimed that Abu Aita was a terrorist. The case was initially dismissed, as Abu Aita was not an American citizen. In September 2012, the defamation claim was settled out of court for an undisclosed amount.The Politician And The Prank
Baron Cohen portrays various characters in Who Is America?, including Erran Morad, an Israeli anti-terrorism expert. The character is referred to as a colonel and later captain, general, major, sergeant, brigadier, sergeant corporal and lieutenant in the Israeli military and a former agent of Mossad or not in the Mossad, as he often interjects. Before Who Is America? aired on Showtime, some conservative public figures made statements saying that Baron Cohen had deceived them while in character. Hours before the premiere, Showtime uploaded the Kinderguardians segment on their YouTube channel, in which Morad explains to Philip Van Cleave, the president of the Virginia Citizens Defense League, of the proposal of a new program where children ages 3 to 16 are armed with guns. He also interviews other conservatives, such as Dana Rohrabacher, Joe Wilson, and Joe Walsh, who are openly supportive. Only Matt Gaetz expresses skepticism of Morad's proposal and declines to be in his video. In the second episode, Morad teaches Jason Spencer, a Republican state representative from Georgia, how to detect and repel terrorists by taking pictures up a woman's burqa with a selfie stick, walking backwards while baring his buttocks, and yelling racial epithets. After the airing of the episode, Spencer initially refused to step down, stating that he was exploited by the producers. In May 2018, Spencer lost his primary to a political novice, Steven Sainz, but was expected to serve the rest of his term until November. He eventually did step down on the 31st of July 2018, leaving the seat vacant. Baron Cohen has denied Who is America? will return for a second season, noting the publicity surrounding the show and his interviews would make it harder for him to dupe guests. In 2018, former Senate candidate Roy Moore of Alabama sued Baron Cohen for 95 million dollars relating to a mock interview in Who Is America? and allegations of paedophilia. On the 13th of July 2021, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York dismissed the lawsuit after finding that Moore had signed a consent agreement barring his claims. Moore has filed notice of his intent to appeal the decision. On the 8th of July 2022, Baron Cohen defeated the lawsuit.Sacha Noam Baron Cohen was born on the 13th of October 1971 into an English Ashkenazi Jewish family in the Hammersmith area of London, yet his life would become defined not by his own face, but by the hundreds of faces he wore to hide it. His mother, Daniella, was born in British Mandatory Palestine to German Jewish parents who had fled the Nazis, while his father, Gerald, grew up in the Welsh town of Pontypridd before becoming a clothing store owner. This dual heritage of survival and assimilation formed the bedrock of a man who would later use comedy to expose the very prejudices that had once threatened his family. Baron Cohen studied history at Christ's College, Cambridge, where he wrote his thesis on the role of Jewish activists in the American civil rights movement, a subject that would eerily foreshadow his future career of using satire to confront social injustice. He was a member of the Labour youth movement Habonim Dror and played the cello, but it was his time studying under master-clown Philippe Gaulier in Paris that truly unlocked his potential. Gaulier, who described him as a good clown full of spirit, taught him that comedy was not about being funny, but about being truthful in the most uncomfortable ways possible. Without Gaulier, Baron Cohen later admitted, he doubted he would have had any success in his field, a sentiment that would prove prophetic as he moved from fashion modeling to hosting local cable television in Windsor.
The Chav Who Stole The Show
The character of Ali G first appeared on the British television show The 11 O'Clock Show on the 8th of September 1998, marking the beginning of a career that would redefine the boundaries of satire. Ali G was a fictional stereotype of a white British suburban male chav who imitated urban black British hip hop culture and British Jamaican culture, speaking in rude boy-style English with borrowed expressions from Jamaican Patois. Hailing from Staines, a suburban town in Surrey, Ali G became so popular that GQ named Baron Cohen comedian of the year just one year after the show premiered. The character was so successful that it spawned Da Ali G Show, which won the BAFTA for Best Comedy in 2001, and later a feature film, Ali G Indahouse, in 2002. The genius of Ali G lay in the method of his interviews, where Baron Cohen would enter the interview area dressed as Ali G, carrying equipment while acting like an inconspicuous crew member. The crew would be accompanied by a man in a suit and tie, leading the subject to believe that this was the person who would interview them. Baron Cohen, as Ali G, would sit down to ask the interviewee some preliminary questions to give them the impression that this was a test run before the well-dressed man conducted the real interview. This continued until a few moments before the cameras started filming, revealing the suited man as the director and Ali G as the interviewer, granting Baron Cohen the element of surprise as the interviewee would be less likely to opt out of the interview so close to its start. This technique allowed him to interview notable figures, including politicians, who were completely unaware that Ali G, rather than being a real interviewer, was a comedic character.
The Kazakh Journalist And The Truth
The character of Borat Sagdiyev was first developed for short skits on F2F on Granada Talk TV in the UK that Baron Cohen presented in 1996 and 1997, with the character at this time being known as Alexi Krickler. The character remained dormant while Baron Cohen concentrated on his Ali G persona, but with the subsequent success of Ali G, Baron Cohen revisited his Borat character. Borat's sense of humour derives from his mocking of society through outrageous sociocultural viewpoints, his deadpan violation of social taboos and use of vulgar language and behaviour. The film Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan was screened at the 2006 Toronto International Film Festival and released in the United Kingdom on the 2nd of November 2006, in the United States on the 3rd of November 2006 and Australia on the 23rd of November 2006. The film follows Sagdiyev as he and his colleague Azamat Bagatov travel the US to produce a documentary about life in the country, as all the while Sagdiyev attempts to enter into marriage with celebrity Pamela Anderson. The film is a mockumentary which includes interviews with various Americans that poke fun at American culture, as well as sexism, racism, homophobia, antisemitism and jingoism. It debuted at the No. 1 spot in the US, taking in an estimated 26.4 million dollars in just 837 theatres averaging 31,600 dollars per theatre. Baron Cohen won the 2007 Golden Globe for Best Actor , Musical or Comedy, his sixth such award, and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay on the 23rd of January 2007. He shared his nomination with the film's co-writers, Ant Hines, Peter Baynham, Dan Mazer and Todd Phillips. The character was brought back on a 2018 appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live and appears in the 2020 sequel Borat Subsequent Moviefilm, for which he won another Golden Globe Award, as well as the 2022 Kennedy Center Honors where he did a standup routine as Borat for the induction of U2.
The Fashion Victim And The Dictator
Another alter ego Sacha Baron Cohen performed as is Brüno, a flamboyantly gay Austrian fashion show presenter who often lures his unwitting subjects into making provocative statements and engaging in embarrassing behaviour, as well as leading them to contradict themselves, often in the same interview. Brüno's main comedic satire pertains to the vacuity and inanity of the fashion and clubbing world. Brüno asks the subjects to answer yes or no questions with either Vassup or Ich don't think so, these are occasionally substituted with Ach, ja or Nicht, nicht. In one segment on Da Ali G Show, he encouraged his guest to answer questions with either Keep them in the ghetto or Train to Auschwitz. In May 2009, at the MTV Movie Awards, Baron Cohen appeared as Brüno wearing a white angel costume, a white jockstrap, white go-go boots and white wings and did an aerial stunt where he dropped from a height using wires onto Eminem. Baron Cohen landed with his face on Eminem's crotch and with his crotch in Eminem's face, prompting Eminem to leave the venue with fellow rappers D12. Eminem later admitted to staging the stunt with Baron Cohen. After an intense bidding war that included such Hollywood powerhouses as DreamWorks, Sony, and 20th Century Fox, Universal Pictures won and paid a reported 42.5 million dollars for the film rights to a collection of interviews Baron Cohen performed as the character Brüno. To create these interviews a number of shill companies and websites were created to draw potential interviewees by creating an illusion of legitimacy. The film was released in July 2009. Baron Cohen's 2012 film, The Dictator, was described by its press as the heroic story of a dictator who risked his life to ensure that democracy would never come to the country he so lovingly oppressed. Baron Cohen played Admiral General Aladeen, a dictator from a fictional country called the Republic of Wadiya. Borat and Brüno film director Larry Charles directed the film. The main target of the film's satire was Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, who was still alive when the film was written. The producers of the film were concerned it would anger Gaddafi, possibly even resulting in a terrorist attack, so they released deliberate misinformation saying that the film was loosely based on a romance novel written by former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.
The Man Who Spilled The Ashes
On the 26th of February 2012, Baron Cohen claimed he was banned from attending the 84th Academy Awards in his role as Admiral General Aladeen but the rumour was denied by the Academy, saying we haven't banned him, he is lying but made it clear that Cohen is not welcome to use the red carpet as a platform for a promotional stunt. Baron Cohen eventually appeared at the awards' red carpet with a pair of uniformed female bodyguards, holding an urn which he claimed was filled with the ashes of Kim Jong-il. The ashes, which Baron Cohen admitted to Howard Stern on the Tuesday, the 8th of May 2012 episode of The Howard Stern Show were flour, were accidentally spilt onto Ryan Seacrest. This incident was just one of many controversies that followed his career. At the 2006 UK premiere of Borat at Leicester Square he arrived in a cart pulled by a mule and a number of Kazakh women, announcing: Good evening, gentleman and prostitutes. After this, I stay in a hotel in King's Cross. We will all drink, wrestle with no clothes on and shoot dogs from the window. Two of the three University of South Carolina students who appear in Borat sued the filmmakers, alleging that they were duped into signing release forms while drunk and that false promises were made that the footage was for a documentary that would never be screened in the US. On the 11th of December 2006 a Los Angeles judge denied the pair a restraining order to remove them from the film. The lawsuit was dismissed in February 2007. On the 30th of April 2010 Palestinian Christian grocer Ayman Abu Aita filed a lawsuit against Baron Cohen. In the film Brüno, Abu Aita was described as a member of Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades. Abu Aita's lawsuit stated that he had been defamed by false accusations that he was a terrorist in the movie Brüno, adding that, though he had been a member of Fatah, he had never been a member of Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade and was a non-violent activist and a board member of Holy Land Trust, a non-profit. He had agreed to the interview under the impression it was a documentary about the daily life of Palestinians. Aita included David Letterman in the suit based on comments made during a the 7th of July 2009 appearance by Baron Cohen on the Late Show with David Letterman in which he claimed that Abu Aita was a terrorist. The case was initially dismissed, as Abu Aita was not an American citizen. In September 2012, the defamation claim was settled out of court for an undisclosed amount.
The Politician And The Prank
Baron Cohen portrays various characters in Who Is America?, including Erran Morad, an Israeli anti-terrorism expert. The character is referred to as a colonel and later captain, general, major, sergeant, brigadier, sergeant corporal and lieutenant in the Israeli military and a former agent of Mossad or not in the Mossad, as he often interjects. Before Who Is America? aired on Showtime, some conservative public figures made statements saying that Baron Cohen had deceived them while in character. Hours before the premiere, Showtime uploaded the Kinderguardians segment on their YouTube channel, in which Morad explains to Philip Van Cleave, the president of the Virginia Citizens Defense League, of the proposal of a new program where children ages 3 to 16 are armed with guns. He also interviews other conservatives, such as Dana Rohrabacher, Joe Wilson, and Joe Walsh, who are openly supportive. Only Matt Gaetz expresses skepticism of Morad's proposal and declines to be in his video. In the second episode, Morad teaches Jason Spencer, a Republican state representative from Georgia, how to detect and repel terrorists by taking pictures up a woman's burqa with a selfie stick, walking backwards while baring his buttocks, and yelling racial epithets. After the airing of the episode, Spencer initially refused to step down, stating that he was exploited by the producers. In May 2018, Spencer lost his primary to a political novice, Steven Sainz, but was expected to serve the rest of his term until November. He eventually did step down on the 31st of July 2018, leaving the seat vacant. Baron Cohen has denied Who is America? will return for a second season, noting the publicity surrounding the show and his interviews would make it harder for him to dupe guests. In 2018, former Senate candidate Roy Moore of Alabama sued Baron Cohen for 95 million dollars relating to a mock interview in Who Is America? and allegations of paedophilia. On the 13th of July 2021, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York dismissed the lawsuit after finding that Moore had signed a consent agreement barring his claims. Moore has filed notice of his intent to appeal the decision. On the 8th of July 2022, Baron Cohen defeated the lawsuit.