Sacha Baron Cohen

His other work includes voicing King Julien XIII in the Madagascar film series (2005–2012) and appearing in Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby (2006), Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007), Hugo (2011), and Les Misérables (2012). He made a cameo as a BBC News Anchor in Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues (2013). In 2016 he played an English football hooligan brother of an MI6 spy in the comedy film Grimsby and co-starred as Time in the fantasy sequel Alice Through the Looking Glass. Two years later he created and starred in Who Is America? (2018) for Showtime, his first television project since Da Ali G Show, for which he was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Television Series Musical or Comedy.

Baron Cohen was named Best Newcomer at the 1999 British Comedy Awards for The 11 O'Clock Show, and since then, he has received two BAFTA Awards for Da Ali G Show, several Emmy nominations, a nomination for an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay, and a Golden Globe for Best Actor for his work in the feature film Borat. After the release of Borat, Baron Cohen said he'd retire Borat and Ali G., because the public had become too familiar with the characters. After the release of Brüno, he said he would retire that character. At the 2012 British Comedy Awards, he received the Outstanding Achievement Award, accepting the award while reprising his Ali G character.  In 2013, he received the BAFTA Charlie Chaplin Britannia Award for Excellence in Comedy.

Early life

Baron Cohen was born in west London to Jewish parents.  His mother, photographer Daniella Naomi (née Weiser), was born in Israel. His father, Gerald Baron Cohen (1932–2016), a clothing store owner, was born in London and raised in Wales. Baron Cohen was raised Jewish and is fluent in Hebrew.

Baron Cohen's maternal family were German Jews, emigrants to Israel. His paternal family were Ashkenazi Jews, who moved to Pontypridd and London in the United Kingdom. His paternal grandfather, Morris Cohen, added "Baron" to his surname. His maternal grandmother, who lived in Haifa, Israel, trained as a ballet dancer in Germany. 

Baron Cohen has two older brothers: Erran and Amnon. Erran is a composer and has worked on several of Sacha's films. Baron Cohen's cousin, Simon Baron-Cohen, is an autism researcher.

Education

Baron Cohen was educated at The Haberdashers' Aske's Boys' School, an independent school in Elstree, Hertfordshire,  attended the University of Cambridge, read History at Christ's College, Cambridge, and graduated in 1993 with upper-second-class honours. While a member of the Cambridge University Amateur Dramatic Club, Baron Cohen performed in plays such as Fiddler on the Roof and Cyrano de Bergerac, as well as in Habonim Dror Jewish theatre.

Early roles

"He [Peter Sellers] was this incredibly realistic actor, who was also hilarious and who managed to bridge the gap between comedy and satire."

—Baron Cohen on his greatest influence, fellow British comedian Peter Sellers.

Growing up, Baron Cohen was a fan of Monty Python and Peter Cook, but his greatest comedic influence was Peter Sellers. Known for portraying a wide range of comic characters using different accents and guises, Sellers was referred to by Baron Cohen as "the most seminal force in shaping [his] early ideas on comedy". After leaving university, Baron Cohen worked for a time as a fashion model. 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. 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, an Albanian fictional television reporter (who developed into the Kazakh Borat Sagdiyev), which caught the attention of a producer. Baron Cohen hosted Pump TV from 1995 to 1996.

In 1996, Baron Cohen began presenting the youth chat programme F2F for Granada Talk TV and had a small role in an advert for McCain Microchips, as a chef in a commercial entitled "Ping Pong". He took clown training in Paris, at the Ecole Philippe Gaulier, studying under master-clown Philippe Gaulier. Of his former pupil, Gaulier says: "He was a good clown, full of spirit". Baron Cohen made his first feature film appearance in the British comedy The Jolly Boys' Last Stand (2000). Also in 2000, he played the part of Super Greg for a series of TV advertisements for Lee Jeans; the advertisements never aired, but the website for Super Greg created an internet sensation.

Characters

Ali G

Main article: Ali G

Baron Cohen as Ali G, offering a speech at Harvard University's Class Day during Commencement ceremonies in 2004

Baron Cohen appeared during two-minute sketches as his fashion reporter Brüno on the Paramount Comedy Channel during 1998. He shot to fame when his comic character Ali G, a fictional stereotype of a British suburban male "chav" who imitates urban black British hip hop culture and British Jamaican culture, as well as speaking in rude boy-style English with borrowed expressions from Jamaican Patois. Hailing from Staines (a suburban town in Surrey, to the west of London), Ali G started appearing on the British television show The 11 O'Clock Show on Channel 4, which first aired on 8 September 1998. A year after the première of the show, GQ named Baron Cohen comedian of the year.  He won Best Newcomer at the 1999 British Comedy Awards, and at the British Academy Television Awards he was nominated for Best British Entertainment Performance.

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 Åkerlund, who was also responsible for directing the titles for Da Ali G Show. Baron Cohen is a supporter of the UK charity telethon Comic Relief, which is broadcast on the BBC, and as Ali G interviewed David Beckham and wife Victoria in 2001.

In a 2001 Channel 4 poll Ali G was ranked eighth on their list of the 100 Greatest TV Characters. 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 home town, Staines. His television show was exported to the United States in 2003, with new episodes set there, for HBO.

At the 2012 British Comedy Awards, 13 years after winning Best Newcomer at the 1999 Comedy Awards, Baron Cohen accepted the Outstanding Achievement Award from Sir Ben Kingsley in the guise of Ali G, and stated: "I is grown up now. I ain't living in my nan's house anymore. I is living in her garage".

Ali G's interviews with celebrities (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 inconspicuous crew member. He would arrive with a suited man, whom 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 start.

Borat Sagdiyev

Main article: Borat Sagdiyev

Baron Cohen as Borat, 2006

Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, a feature film with his character Borat Sagdiyev 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 follows Sagdiyev as he and his colleague Azamat Bagatov travel the United States to produce a documentary about life in the country, 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, anti-Semitism, and jingoism. It debuted at the No. 1 spot in the US, taking in an estimated $26.4 million in just 837 theatres averaging $31,600 per theatre. 

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, Dan , 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 heritage 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. On 21 December 2007, Baron Cohen announced he was retiring the character of Borat.

Brüno Gehard

Main article: Brüno Gehard

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 asks the subjects to answer "yes or no" questions with either "Vassup" (what's up) or "Ich don't think so" (No); these are occasionally substituted with "Ach, ja!" (Ah yes!) or "Nicht, nicht" ("Nicht" means "not" in German). 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".

Brüno'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 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, with his crotch in Eminem's face, prompting Eminem to exit 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 for the film rights. A number of shill companies and websites were created in order to draw potential interviewees into interviews by creating an illusion of legitimacy.  The film was released in July 2009.

Admiral General Aladeen

Further information: The Dictator (2012 film)

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.

On 26 February 2012, Baron Cohen was allegedly 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, 8 May 2012 episode of The Howard Stern Show were flour, were "accidentally" spilled onto Ryan Seacrest.

Erran Morad

Further information: Who Is America?

Baron Cohen portrays various characters in Who Is America?, the most prominent and controversial being 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 burqua 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. He eventually did step down on July 31, 2018, leaving the seat vacant. 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.

Personal life

Israel and Judaism

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

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

According to Baron Cohen, "I wouldn't say I am a religious Jew. I am proud of my Jewish identity and there are certain things I do and customs I keep." He tries to keep kosher and attends synagogue about twice a year. 

Marriage and family

Baron Cohen first met actress Isla Fisher in 2002, at a party in Sydney, Australia. The couple became engaged in 2004. Subsequent to Fisher's conversion to Judaism,  the two married on 15 March 2010 in Paris, France in a Jewish ceremony. Baron Cohen and Fisher have three children. Charitable donations

On 28 December 2015, Baron Cohen and his wife Isla Fisher donated £335,000 ($500,000) to Save the Children as part of a programme to vaccinate children in northern Syria against measles, and the same amount to the International Rescue Committee also aimed at helping Syrian refugees.