Sacha Baron Cohen Bio

This Sacha Baron Cohen biography contains information believed to be accurate as extracted from sources around the internet including Wikipedia. If you believe there are errors or omissions in this Sacha Baron Cohen bio, please let us know so that we can correct any inaccuracies.

Sacha Noam Baron Cohen (born 13 October 1971) is an English actor, comedian, and writer most noted for his comic characters Ali G (a pseudo 'urban' youth from suburban Staines), Borat Sagdiyev (a misogynistic, antisemitic Kazakh reporter), and Brí¼no (a flamboyantly homosexual Austrian fashion reporter). In his routine, he typically conducts interviews with respected figures while posing as one of his characters for comedic effect. Those he interviews ostensibly believe that the interviews are sincere and legitimate. Sacha Baron Cohen's work has been recognized with several Emmy nominations, an Oscar nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay, a BAFTA award, and a Golden Globe for Best Actor for his work in the feature film Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan.

After the release of the film Borat, he announced that because the public had become too familiar with the characters, he would retire Borat and Ali G. Similarly, after the release of Brí¼no he has stated he would also retire the title character.

Sacha Baron Cohen: Background

Sacha Baron Cohen - Family

Sacha Baron Cohen was born in England, the youngest of three sons in a Jewish family. His mother was born in Israel, while his father was originally from Wales. Baron Cohen's paternal grandfather was born in Pontypridd, Wales, and his maternal grandmother, who now lives in Haifa, Israel, was a ballet dancer originally from Germany.

Sacha Baron Cohen - Education

Baron Cohen first attended St Columba's College Prep School, St Albans, Hertfordshire, before moving on to attend Haberdashers' Aske's Boys' School, a private school in Elstree, Hertfordshire, near London. He went on to Cambridge University, entering Christ's College, Cambridge, where he read History under Niall Ferguson and wrote his thesis on Jewish involvement in the American Civil Rights movement, with emphasis on the 1964 murders of James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner in Mississippi.

At the Cambridge University Amateur Dramatic Club, Baron Cohen acted in plays such as Fiddler on the Roof (in which he played Tevye) and Cyrano de Bergerac. While at Cambridge, he performed in Habonim Dror Jewish theatre performances.

Sacha Baron Cohen: Career

Sacha Baron Cohen - Early roles

After leaving university, Baron Cohen worked for a time as a fashion model, appearing in many fashion magazines. By the early 1990s, he was hosting a weekly programme on Windsor cable television's local broadcasts with Carol Kirkwood, who later became a BBC weather forecaster. He was fired by Windsor TV for broadcasting a lewd presentation for Valentine's Day. In 1995, Channel 4 was planning a replacement for its series The Word, and disseminated an open call for new television presenters. Baron Cohen sent in a tape of himself in the character of Kristo, a fictional television reporter from Albania (who developed into the Kazakhstani Borat), which caught the attention of a producer. Baron Cohen bided his time by hosting Pump TV from 1995-1996. The late nineties saw Cohen make his first feature film appearance in the British comedy The Jolly Boys' Last Stand. He also presented the youth chat programme F2F. In 2000 Cohen played the part of Super Greg for a series of TV commercials (which never aired) for Lee Jeans, yet the website for Super Greg created an internet sensation.

Sacha Baron Cohen - Ali G character

Baron Cohen as Ali G, offering a speech at Harvard University's Class Day during Commencement ceremonies

Baron Cohen appeared during 2-minute sketches as his fashion reporter Brí¼no on The Paramount Comedy Channel during 1998. He shot to fame when his comic character Ali G, an uneducated, boorish junglist, started appearing on the British television show The Eleven O'Clock Show on Channel 4, which first went to air 8 September 1998.

Da Ali G Show began in 2000, and won the BAFTA for Best Comedy in the following year. Also in 2000, Baron Cohen as Ali G appeared as the limousine driver in Madonna's 2000 video "Music", directed by Jonas í…kerlund, who was also responsible for directing the titles for Da Ali G Show.

In 2002, Ali G was the central character in the feature film Ali G Indahouse, in which he is elected to the British Parliament and foils a plot to bulldoze a community centre in his hometown, Staines. His television show was exported to the United States in 2003 (with new episodes set in America) for HBO.

Ali G's interviews with famous people (often politicians) gained notoriety partly because the subjects were not privy to the joke that Ali G, rather than being a real interviewer, was a comic character played by Baron Cohen. According to Rolling Stone magazine, Baron Cohen would always enter the interview area in character as Ali G, carrying equipment and appearing to be an insignificant crew member. He would arrive with a suited man, who the interviewee naturally thought was the interviewer. Baron Cohen, as Ali G, would sit down to begin conducting the interview by asking the interviewee some preliminary questions. The interviewee, however, would remain under the impression that the smartly-dressed director would be conducting the interview until short notice prior to cameras rolling: this would grant an advantage of surprise, whereby the interviewee would be less likely to opt out of the Ali interview prior to its commencement.

The resulting willingness of Baron Cohen's targets to answer his frequently risqué questions often created surprising conversations. Interviewees have included:

• astronaut Buzz Aldrin
• politician and consumer advocate Ralph Nader
• writer Gore Vidal
• real estate mogul Donald Trump
• former U.S. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop
• basketball players Shaquille O'Neal, Steve Nash, Kobe Byrant, Richard Jefferson, Tim Duncan, and Ben Wallace
• former U.S. Secretary of State James Baker III
• former U.S. Attorney General Dick Thornburgh
• businessman and billionaire Mohamed Al-Fayed
• former U.S. Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich
• political commentator Pat Buchanan
• Professor Noam Chomsky
• footballer David Beckham and his wife, ex-Spice Girl Victoria Beckham for the UK's Comic Relief.
• former UN Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali (whom Baron Cohen, in his Ali G character, referred to as 'Boutros Boutros Boutros-Ghali')
• former Conservative Party MP Neil Hamilton
• journalist Andy Rooney
• Labour politician Tony Benn

Baron Cohen is a supporter of Comic Relief, and (as Ali G) has hosted some interviews for benefit of the charity.

Sacha Baron Cohen - Borat character

Baron Cohen as Borat

Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, a feature film with "Borat" at the centre, was screened at the 2006 Toronto International Film Festival and released in the United Kingdom on 2 November 2006, in the United States on 3 November 2006 and Australia 23 November 2006. The film is about a journey across the United States in an ice cream van, in which the main character is obsessed with the idea of marrying Pamela Anderson. The film is a mockumentary which includes interviews with various American citizens that poke fun at American culture, as well as sexism, racism, homophobia, anti-Semitism, jingoism and Baywatch. Throughout the entirety of the film Borat speaks in presumably his native tongue of Kazakhstani; however, he is fluent in Hebrew.

It debuted at the #1 spot in the US, taking in an estimated $26.4 million in just 837 theatres averaging $31,600 per theatre, the fourth highest per-theatre average of all time for movies opening wide (500 screens or more), behind Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest and Spider-Man. It easily outdistanced the expected #1 movie of the weekend, Disney's The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause, which earned an estimated $20 million in 3,458 cinemas.

Baron Cohen won the 2007 Golden Globe in the "Best Actor - Musical or Comedy" category, his sixth such award. Although Borat was up for "Best Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy", the film lost to Dreamgirls. On 23 January 2007, he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. He shared his nomination with the film's co-writers, Ant Hines, Peter Baynham,Sy Mordecai Finesto, Dan Mazer, and Todd Phillips.

Aside from the comic elements of his characters, Baron Cohen's performances are interpreted by some as reflecting uncomfortable truths about his audience. He juxtaposes his own Jewish lineage with the anti-Semitism of his character Borat.

In 2007, Baron Cohen published a travel guide as Borat, with dual titles: Borat: Touristic Guidings To Minor Nation of U.S. and A. and Borat: Touristic Guidings To Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, however on 21 December Baron Cohen announced he was retiring the character of Borat.

Sacha Baron Cohen - Brí¼no character

Baron Cohen as Brí¼no

Another alter ego Sacha Baron Cohen performed as is 'Brí¼no', a flamboyantly gay Austrian fashion show presenter, who often lures his subjects, unwittingly, into making provocative statements and engaging in embarrassing behaviour, as well as leading them to contradict themselves, often in the same interview. Brí¼no asks the subjects to answer 'yes or no' questions with either "Vassup" (whats up), or "Ich don't think so" (no), or sometimes "Ach, ja!" (Ah, yes!) or "Nicht, nicht" (not, not). In at least 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". Brí¼no's main comedic satire pertains to the vacuity and inanity of the fashion and clubbing world. In May 2009 at the MTV Movie Awards, Baron Cohen appeared as 'Brí¼no' wearing a white angel costume, a white jock strap, white go-go boots and white wings, and did an aerial stunt where he dropped from a height (using wires) onto Eminem, Cohen landed on his lap and his rear in Eminem's face, prompting Eminem to exit the venue with fellow rappers D12 (staged as a malfunction, Eminem was in on the gag with Cohen and even rehearsed it, as exposed about a week after the show).

After an intense bidding war that included such Hollywood powerhouses as DreamWorks, Sony, and 20th Century Fox; Universal Pictures paid a reported $42.5 million for the rights to the movie. A number of shill companies and Web sites have been created in order to draw potential interviewees into interviews by creating an illusion of legitimacy.

Sacha Baron Cohen: Controversies

Baron Cohen has encountered many controversies regarding some of his comic characters.

• Black British comedian Felix Dexter said in The Guardian that he appreciated the humour of an innocent confronting an expert with neither understanding the other. However, he added: "I feel that a lot of the humour is laughing at black street culture and it is being celebrated because it allows the liberal middle classes to laugh at that culture in a safe context where they can retain their sense of political correctness."
• Two residents of Glod, the Romani Gypsy village in which the opening scenes of Borat were filmed, hired US attorney Edward Fagan to sue the makers of Borat for $30 million. They alleged that the intent of the film was misrepresented to them, that the poorest members of their village were made to look like "savages", and that they were underpaid, particularly when their minute salaries were compared to the millions earned by the completed movie. During several segments, children were filmed with guns and other weapons and in another scene, an amputee who lost his arm was told to wear a rubber fist sex toy. The lawsuit was dismissed in a New York hearing on the grounds that the allegations were too vague to stand up in court.
• In an interview with former British MP Neil Hamilton in 2000, Ali G offered Hamilton what was allegedly cannabis, which Hamilton accepted and smoked, creating some minor controversy in the British media.
• At the 2006 MTV Movie Awards, Borat introduced Gnarls Barkley's performance of "Crazy", where he made a comment about Jessica Simpson, saying that he liked her mouth and that he could see it clearly through her denim pants. His appearance was cut from subsequent rebroadcasts.
• Baron Cohen has had some troubles because of racist or prejudiced comments his characters have made (see Da Ali G Show). HBO spokesman Quentin Schaffer has replied to the criticisms: 'Through his alter-egos, he delivers an obvious satire that exposes people's ignorance and prejudice in much the same way All in the Family did years ago.' Regarding his portrayal as the anti-Semitic Borat, Baron Cohen says the segments are a "dramatic demonstration of how racism feeds on dumb conformity, as much as rabid bigotry", rather than a display of racism by Baron Cohen himself. "Borat essentially works as a tool. By himself being anti-Semitic, he lets people lower their guard and expose their own prejudice", Baron Cohen explains. Addressing the same topic in an NPR interview with Robert Siegel, Baron Cohen says "...and I think that's quite an interesting thing with Borat, which is people really let down their guard with him because they're in a room with somebody who seems to have these outrageous opinions. They sometimes feel much more relaxed about letting their own outrageous, politically incorrect, prejudiced opinions come out."
• Baron Cohen, the grandson of a Holocaust survivor, says he also wishes in particular to expose the role of indifference in that genocide. "When I was in university, there was this major historian of the Third Reich, Ian Kershaw, who said, 'The path to Auschwitz was paved with indifference.' I know it's not very funny being a comedian talking about the Holocaust, but it's an interesting idea that not everyone in Germany had to be a raving anti-Semite. They just had to be apathetic." Regarding the enthusiastic response to his song, "Throw The Jew Down The Well", he says, "Did it reveal that they were anti-Semitic? Perhaps. But maybe it just revealed that they were indifferent to anti-Semitism."
• The government of Kazakhstan threatened Baron Cohen with legal action following the 2005 MTV Europe Music Awards ceremony in Lisbon, and the authority in charge of the country's country-code top-level domain name removed the website that he had created for his character Borat (previously: http://www.borat.kz) for alleged violation of the law - specifically, registering for the domain under a false name. The New York Times, (among others), has reported that Baron Cohen, (in character as Borat), replied: "I'd like to state that I have no connection with Mr Cohen and fully support my government decision to sue this Jew". He was, however, recently defended by Dariga Nazarbayeva, a politician and the daughter of Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev, who stated 'We should not be afraid of humour and we shouldn't try to control everything, I think.' The deputy foreign minister of Kazakhstan has recently invited Baron Cohen to visit the country, stating that he could learn that 'women drive cars, wine is made of grapes, and Jews are free to go to synagogues.' After the worldwide success of the Borat film, the Kazakh government, including the president, altered their stance on Baron Cohen's parody, tacitly recognizing the invaluable press the controversy created for their country.
• Baron Cohen encountered another problem around his Borat character. 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 USA. On 11 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.
• Baron Cohen walked onto the runway during the í�gatha Ruiz de la Prada fashion show in Milan on 26 September 2008. In the character of his latest alter-ego Brí¼no, he was wearing costume made out of velcro. He appeared on the stage with a large tent and other items attached to his velcro suit. Lights were turned off while security intervened and escorted him off the stage, and the fashion show resumed normally shortly thereafter. Baron Cohen and his team allegedly accessed the fashion show using fake IDs.
• During an appearance on The Late Show with David Letterman, Cohen stated he was restricted from answering David Letterman's question as to how he managed to get an interview with Pat Buchanan while in character as Ali G due to pending "legal reasons".
• While introducing an award at the 2009 MTV Movie Awards, Baron Cohen was lowered upside-down from the rafters dressed as an angel right into rapper Eminem's lap after an apparently staged problem with his wire harness. Baron Cohen had only a jockstrap on underneath and fully exposed his buttocks in Eminem's face. Eminem swore repeatedly, demanding that his friends, members of D12, each of whom were sitting next to Eminem, remove Baron Cohen, then left the auditorium. Baron Cohen then announced the winner while still hanging from the wires above the stage. It was later revealed that Eminem and Baron Cohen had planned the gag together.
• Baron Cohen was sued in California on 22 May 2009 over a 2007 incident at a charity bingo tournament that was filmed for "Brí¼no" at which a participant claimed she was disabled as a result of Baron Cohen's attempt to "create a dramatic emotional response". The lawsuit, seeking unspecified damages of more than $25,000, claims Baron Cohen's camera crew struggled with the plaintiff after she tried to grab a microphone away from the actor while he was using vulgarities calling a bingo game.

Sacha Baron Cohen: TV, radio and magazine appearances

Baron Cohen guest-starred in the finale of the fifth season Curb Your Enthusiasm, with Dustin Hoffman as a guide to Heaven. He also provided the voice of the lemur king, King Julien, in DreamWorks' family movie Madagascar (2005) as well as its 2008 sequel, and appeared as Will Ferrell's arch rival the French Formula One speed demon Jean Girard in the 2006 hit Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby. He also appeared alongside Johnny Depp in the 2007 film Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street as Signor Adolfo Pirelli.

Baron Cohen tends to avoid doing interviews out of character. However, in 2004, he did the talk show circuit appearing as himself on The Late Show with David Letterman, The Opie and Anthony Show, The Howard Stern Show, and others in order to promote the upcoming season of his show on HBO. He was also interviewed on NPR's All Things Considered. He also did an interview with Rolling Stone Magazine, published in November 2006, that the magazine labelled as "his only interview as himself". He also appeared in an interview out of character with Terry Gross on NPR's Fresh Air on 4 January 2007.

Baron Cohen has twice presented the MTV Europe Music Awards, first as Ali G on 8 November 2001, in Frankfurt, Germany, and then as Borat on 3 November 2005 in Lisbon, Portugal. Baron Cohen appeared out of character to present an award at the British Comedy Awards in December 2006. He said at the time that Borat could not make it to the awards as 'he is at a conference in Iran at the moment,' referring to the International Conference to Review the Global Vision of the Holocaust. Baron Cohen also referred to that same Iranian conference as a "holocaust denial conference", saying that Borat was the "guest of honour" and jokingly describing it as a "very important conference".

Borat Director Larry Charles explains that Baron Cohen generally appears in character partly to "protect his weakness", by focusing public interest on his characters rather than himself. His other reason, Newsweek claims, is that Baron Cohen is fiercely private: "...according to the UK press, his publicists denied not only that he attended a party for the London premiere of 'Borat', but also that a party even occurred".

It was reported online that Baron Cohen might play Freddie Mercury in a biographical film, but his publicist later declared that Baron Cohen would not do so.

Baron Cohen shot a spread with supermodel Alessandra Ambrosio for Marie Claire Magazine to promote the film Brí¼no.

Sports Illustrated's 6 November 2006 issue contains a column called "Skater vs. Instigator", which illustrates various amusing "parallels" between Baron Cohen and figure skater Sasha Cohen, ranging from their mutually held personal significance of the number 4, to their mutual romantic interests in redheads. Baron Cohen also featured on Rove! on the 28th of June, 2009. Baron Cohen featured in the Time 100 list for 2007.

Sacha Baron Cohen: Personal life

Baron Cohen is engaged to the Australian actress Isla Fisher. After three years of study, Isla converted to Judaism in early 2007, and has received the approval of Baron Cohen's observant Jewish parents. On 19 October 2007 Isla gave birth to a baby girl named Olive Baron Cohen in Los Angeles, California, USA.

Sacha Baron Cohen - Performer versus characters

Baron Cohen has often been confused with the identity of one of his characters. When he posed as Borat to host the MTV Europe Music Awards in Lisbon, the central Hungarian news wire agency MTI reported that the host was 'Borat Sagdiyev'. As most Hungarian newspapers and television networks take MTI as their official source, the misinterpretation of the character spread rapidly in Hungary, with some sources (such as TV2) emphasizing that a Kazakhstani news reporter hosted the awards, while others (such as Index.hu) noticed and pointed out the error.

Sacha Baron Cohen - Israel and Judaism

Baron Cohen first acted in theatrical productions featuring the Socialist-Zionist youth movement Habonim Dror.

He spent a year in Israel at Kibbutz Rosh HaNikra and Kibbutz Beit HaEmek as part of the Shnat Habonim Dror, as well as taking part in the programme "Machon l'Madrichei Chutz L'Aretz" for Jewish youth movement leaders.

Baron Cohen frequently speaks in Hebrew while playing the anti-Semitic character Borat. He also sang the lyrics from an old Hebrew folk song in an episode of Da Ali G Show. In one of the deleted scenes of his movie, after being asked by the host-pastor to lead the table in a pre-meal prayer service, Cohen, in his character role of Borat, sings a lengthy hymn (not Hebrew) that has clear recollections of the Mussaf prayer service of the Jewish High Holidays.

Sacha Baron Cohen: Awards and nominations

• 1999 - Won British Comedy Award, Best Male Comedy Newcomer for The 11 O'Clock Show (1998)
• 2000 - Nominated BAFTA TV Award, Best Entertainment Performance for The 11 O'Clock Show (1998)
• 2000 - Nominated National Television Awards, UK, Most Popular Comedy Performer for Da Ali G Show (2000)
• 2000 - Won TV Quick Award, TV Personality of the Year for Da Ali G Show (2000)
• 2001 - Won BAFTA TV Award, Best Comedy (Programme or Series) for Da Ali G Show (2000) (shared)
• 2001 - Won BAFTA TV Award, Best Comedy Performance for Da Ali G Show (2000)
• 2003 - Nominated Emmy Award, Outstanding Non-Fiction Program (Alternative) for Da Ali G Show (2003) (shared)
• 2003 - Nominated Emmy Award, Outstanding Writing for Non-Fiction Programming for Da Ali G Show (2003) (shared)
• 2004 - Nominated Golden Satellite Award, Best Performance by an Actor in a Series, Comedy or Musical for Da Ali G Show (2003)
• 2005 - Nominated Emmy Award, Outstanding Variety, Music or Comedy Series for Da Ali G Show (2003) (shared)
• 2005 - Nominated Emmy Award, Outstanding Writing for a Variety, Music or Comedy Program for Da Ali G Show (2003) (shared)
• 2006 - Won Ronnie Barker Award
• 2007 - Won MTV Movie Award for Best Kiss alongside Will Ferrell in Talladega Nights

Sacha Baron Cohen - Borat awards and nominations

• 2006 - Won: Los Angeles Films Critics Association Award for Best Actor.
• 2006 - Won: San Francisco Films Critics Circle Award for Best Actor.
• 2006 - Winner: Toronto Film Critics Association Award for Best Actor.
• 2006 - Won: Deutscher Comedypreis (German comedy award) for Best International Comedy.
• 2007 - Won: Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Comedy/Musical
• 2007 - Nominated: Golden Globe for Best Picture Comedy/Musical.
• 2007 - Nominated: London Film Critics Circle Award for British Actor of the Year.
• 2007 - Nominated: Writers Guild of America Award for Best Adapted Screenplay (shared).
• 2007 - Nominated: Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay (shared).
• 2007 - Won: MTV Movie Award for Best Comedic Performance and Nominated for Best Movie as well.
• 2007 - Won: The Evening Standard British Film Awards: Peter Sellers award for Best Comedy.