Sacha Baron Cohen apologized to Kazakhstan for the first time for the movie "Borat"
Kazakhstani people had perceived this film as an insult when it came out 20 years ago. The actor, stating that this character did not reflect real life in Kazakhstan, explained why he associated his protagonist with this country.
Sacha Baron Cohen apologized to Kazakhstan for the film "Borat" for the first time
British actor Sacha Baron Cohen officially apologized to the people of Kazakhstan for his eponymous character in the 2006 film "Borat". According to the plot of this movie, a fictional Kazakhstani journalist, Borat Sagdiyev, travels to the US to film a documentary, gets acquainted with American culture, and finds himself in many humorous situations.
During a conversation with American journalist Josh Horowitz on the *Happy Sad Confused* podcast, the comedian actor also promoted the comedy "Ali G: Who Am I?" (in which the character of Borat also returned).
At that point, he admitted that his famous character had nothing to do with Kazakhstan.
"I want to apologize to the people of Kazakhstan for the first time. Because Borat has nothing to do with Kazakhstan," the actor said on the *Happy Sad Confused* podcast.
The actor explained that the character first appeared in a comedy show for the BBC, and later his name and nationality changed depending on which TV channel financed the show.
He says that while working on his next comedy, he chose Kazakhstan as a "place nobody knew about." He emphasizes that he did not even know what a Kazakh accent sounded like. "It has nothing to do with Borat, but I'll still keep using it because my knowledge of Central Asian accents is very limited," he said.
The statement on air was the first time Cohen apologized for the character he created, but he had to justify himself as early as when the film came out. "We're not laughing at Kazakhstan. We're laughing at people who believe that the Kazakhstan I described actually exists," the actor said in a 2006 interview with *Rolling Stone*.
Over time, the government of Kazakhstan went from hating "Borat" to understanding it. In 2005, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Kazakhstan threatened to sue Cohen and called his show a "political order" aimed at discrediting Kazakhstan and its people internationally.
And in 2006, on the eve of the release of the feature film, the country's government paid *The New York Times* and the *International Herald Tribune* newspapers to publish a four-page advertising insert telling the story of Kazakhstan's achievements in the 21st century.