Sacha Cohen

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 Borat film, he announced that because the public had become too familiar with the characters, he would retire Borat and Ali G.


Background
Family
Sacha Baron Cohen was born in Hammersmith, London, England, the youngest of three sons in an Orthodox Jewish family. His mother, Daniella (née Weiser), teaches at a school of movement and was born in Israel. His father, Gerald Baron Cohen, was originally from Wales. Baron Cohen's paternal grandfather was born in Pontypridd, and his maternal grandmother, who now lives in Haifa, Israel, was an acclaimed ballet dancer from Germany. His paternal great grandfather was born in Kaunas, Lithuania. His brother Erran Baron Cohen, a composer and trumpet player, contributed to the Borat film with the song "O Kazakhstan." Sacha Baron Cohen's cousin is Simon Baron-Cohen, a renowned professor in the study of autism spectrum disorders, at Cambridge University.
Education
Baron Cohen first attended 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.
Career
Early roles
After leaving the university, Cohen worked for a time as a male fashion model, appearing in many fashion magazines. By the early 1990s, he was hosting a weekly program on Windsor cable television's local broadcasts alongside Carol Kirkwood, who later became the BBC anchor for weather broadcasts. 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 working for a Swindon-based television company. He shot to fame when his comic character Ali G, an uneducated, boorish Junglist, started appearing on 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, Ali G appeared in Madonna's music video "Music".
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 interviews
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. 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, who walked out after about 60 seconds
former U.S.

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". Bruno's main comedic satire pertains to the vacuity and inanity of the fashion and clubbing world.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.
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.

He shared his nomination with the film's co-writers, Ant Hines, Peter Baynham, 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.

He also provided the voice of the lemur king, King Julian, in DreamWorks' family movie Madagascar (2005) as well as its 2008 sequel, and appeared as Will Ferrell's arch rival the French Formula 1 speed demon Jean Girard in the 2006 hit Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby.
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.
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 is a supporter of Comic Relief, and (as Ali G) has hosted interviews with, among others, David Beckham and wife Victoria, for benefit of the charity.
Baron Cohen appears alongside Johnny Depp in the 2007 film Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007 film) as Signor Adolfo Pirelli.
Baron Cohen appeared out of character around the time of the launch of Da Ali G Show on HBO, in the United States, including appearances on The Late Show with David Letterman and The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.
Baron Cohen appeared out of character to present an award at the British Comedy Awards in December 2006.

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".

Controversies
Baron Cohen has encountered many controversies regarding some of his comic characters.
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. During several unaired segments, kids 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 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.

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.

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 Kazakhstani 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.

In the character of his latest alter-ego Bruno, he was wearing an outlandish costume consisting of a large black cape with eccentric accessories. 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. 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.
"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 may play Freddie Mercury in a biographical film. However, his publicist has declared that Baron Cohen will not be playing the part.
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 featured in the Time 100 list for 2007.
Personal life
Baron Cohen is engaged to the Australian actress Isla Fisher.He also sang the lyrics from an old Hebrew folk song in an episode of Da Ali G Show.