Sacha Baron Cohen on CNN

Interviewee: Sacha Baron Cohen
Interviewer: Betty Nguyen
Date: 04 November 2006

Sacha Baron Cohen is an English comedian, writer, and actor who is best known for his hilarious characters including Ali G., a junglist-hip hop gangster wannabe; Bruno, a flashy gay Austrian fashion reporter; and Borat, a Kazakhstan reporter.

Born Sacha Noam Baron Cohen on October 13, 1971, in London, England, Cohen comes from a middle-class Jewish family. In the early 1990s, Cohen hosted a weekly program on Windsor cable television but got fired for airing a vulgar presentation. In 1995, Sacha Cohen sent to Channel 4 a tape of himself portraying Kristo, a fictional television reporter from Albania.

Eventually, Sacha Cohen started working for a Swindon-based television company. In 1998, he was called to fill a “special report” spot on Channel 4’s The 11 O’Clock Show. He introduced the character of Ali G, an ignorant, foul-mouthed British hip-hop wannabe, and acted as the voice of the youth. The character clicked so much that Cohen got his own program in 2000, Da Ali G Show.

In 2002, the film Ali G Indahouse was released, and in 2003, the show was brought to the United States for HBO. Da Ali G Show also included segments from two of Cohen’s alter egos, Bruno, a gay Austrian fashion reporter of a fictional program called Gay TV, and Borat, an anti-Jewish Kazakhstan reporter. In 2005, he lent his voice for the computer-animated Madagascar; and in 2006, he appeared in Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby. He also released the mockumentary Borat: Cultural Learnings from America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, which got an Academy Award nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay. The movie also earned him a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Comedy/Musical, and some other awards. In 2007, he also played a role in the film Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.

Meet the real Sacha Baron Cohen in this National Public Radio report.

Sacha Baron Cohen is featured on Time Magazine 100 Artists and Entertainers.

AskMen.com’s profile of Sacha Baron Cohen.