Borat Subsiqent Moviefilm debuted on Amazon's Prime Video this weekend and with it, it seems quite likely that a lot of people have now seen the part of the movie that everybody was already talking about. The special appearance by former New York City Mayor Rudy Guiliani puts the man in a fairly compromising position, and while nothing in the sequence appears to be overtly dangerous, Sasha Baron Cohen admits that we was quite concerned while shooting that part of the movie.
Sasha Baron Cohen, who plays Borat, and Maria Bakalova, who plays his daughter, recently appeared on GMA and Cohen explained that he was hidden close by, and monitoring Bakalova and Guiliani while they were in the hotel room together. He was ultimately responsible for what happened on the set and he took that responsibility seriously. According to Cohen...
I was quite concerned for [Maria] during the scene. We built a hideaway that I was hiding in during the entire scene. So I was monitoring it by text. It's my responsibility as a producer as well to ensure that the lead actor is looked after.
What makes Borat movies so hilarious and dramatic is that, usually, Sasha Baron Cohen is the only one in the shot that is aware he's being filmed for a comedy movie. The rest of the people in the film are just people, who are about to be, largely unknowingly, subjected to Borat's antics. As a viewer, not having any clue what's going to happen next is the draw. Of course, that's also the potential danger when you're making the movie because you never really know how these "normal" people will react.
In Borat Subsequent Moviefilm: Delivery of Prodigious Bribe to American Regime for Make Benefit Once Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, actress Maria Bakalova, who plays Borat's daughter, who is supposed to only be 15-years-old, is able to get an interview scheduled in a hotel room with the personal lawyer of the President of the United States. It takes place in a hotel room, and afterward, the pair go into the bedroom to have a drink.
In this case, the fact that the man in the hotel room was Rudy Giuliani was probably secondary to the fact that putting any actress in that scenario could go literally anywhere. And there's always the possibility that the person you're messing with somehow suspects they're being messed with, which could lead to some angry people who, again, could do almost anything.
Maria Bakalova says that she never felt in danger because she knew that Sasha Baron Cohen and the rest of the crew were there, and so she felt safe because she knew nothing bad would happen. And to be fair, while it's...unclear, exactly what Rudy Giuliani is doing with his pants just before Borat busts into the room, it doesn't appear the actress was ever in real jeopardy.
Instead, the whole thing is just hilarious, While Rudy Giuliani has stated that he was just tucking in his shirt after removing the mic following his fake interview, that is far from obvious. And even if it's true, the whole thing is still funny as hell.
