Sacha Baron Cohen has described the measures he took to avoid being identified while gate-crashing the vice president’s CPAC event in Borat 2.
For the comedy sequel, Baron Cohen, in the guise of his buffoonish alter-ego Borat Sagdiyev, infiltrated the Conservative Political Action Conference, donning an elaborate Donald Trump outfit in the toilets before crashing a speech delivered by Mike Pence.
Speaking to Ben Affleck in an interview for Variety, the actor described the aftermath of the stunt.
“I get escorted out by a bunch of Secret Service, about 11 guys,” he said. “And my main aim was not to give over my ID, because I felt like the moment they knew it was me, Sacha, that will become a big news story. And that would destroy the rest of the movie.”
“One of the cops goes, ‘Give me your ID.’ I knew I had to delay. I knew if I delayed long enough, maybe they’d forget. So I said, ‘I’m not giving my ID until you show proof that you are a law enforcement officer.’”
After another officer then pressed the issue, Baron Cohen responded: “Listen, I’d like to, but my ID is in my shoe. Do you want me to take off my shoe?”
The security officer then told him to “forget it”.
Borat 2 (officially titled Borat Subsequent Moviefilm: Delivery of Prodigious Bribe to American Regime for Make Benefit Once Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan) continued Baron Cohen’s tradition of implanting a fictional persona into real-world situations, interacting with unsuspecting members of the public.
While Baron Cohen and the Borat 2 production team were able to keep word of the film’s existence secret throughout much of the development, rumours did start to leak when the actor was spotted filming in character on a couple of occasions, including at a Washington gun rally.
