Sacha Baron Cohen

Sacha Noam Baron Cohen (born October 13, 1971) is a British Jewish comedian, writer and a Golden Globe-winning actor most noted for his comic characters Borat (a Kazakh reporter), Ali G (a junglist-hip hop gangsta wannabe from suburban Staines) and Bruno (a flamboyantly gay Austrian fashion reporter).
In his routine, Baron Cohen typically conducts interviews with respected figures while posing as one of his characters for comic effect. His interviewees believe that the ostensible interviews are sincere and legitimate. His 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. In 2009 he is scheduled to star in the feature film Dinner for Schmucks, based on a screenplay by comedian Andy Borowitz.
On December 21, 2007, Baron Cohen announced that, because the public had become too familiar with the characters, he was going to retire Borat and Ali G.

Baron Cohen, the youngest of three sons, was born in Hammersmith, London, England,[1] to an Orthodox Jewish family.[3] His mother, Daniella (née Weiser), teaches at a school of movement and was born in Israel.[4] His father, Gerald Baron Cohen, originally from Wales,[5] owns a menswear shop in Piccadilly. Baron Cohen's paternal grandfather was born in Pontypridd and his maternal grandmother, who now lives in Haifa, Israel,[6] was an acclaimed ballet dancer from Germany.[7][8][9] His paternal great grandfather was born in Kaunas.[10] His brother Erran Baron Cohen, a composer and trumpet player with Middle Eastern influences and a founding member of the British electronica world-music group Zöhar, lent his talents to the Borat film with the song "O Kazakhstan" and others. Sacha Baron Cohen's cousin Simon Baron-Cohen is a leading researcher in the study of autism spectrum disorders (including Asperger syndrome).

The Baron Cohens enjoyed a high standard of living. Sacha attended Haberdashers' Aske's Boys' School, a privileged private school in Elstree. The same school was also attended by fellow Jewish comedians Matt Lucas and David Baddiel. He also attended Dulwich College (Dulwich - South London). He then attended Christ's College, Cambridge where he studied 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.[11]
At the Cambridge University Amateur Dramatic Club, Baron Cohen acted in plays such as Cyrano de Bergerac and Fiddler on the Roof, in which he played Tevye. His long-time collaborator Dan Mazer also attended the University of Cambridge and was a member of the Cambridge Footlights, and although Baron Cohen himself was not a member, he performed in at least one Footlights presentation as well as other shows (including singing the part of Guy Fawkes in the musical Gunpowder, Treason and Plot).
Baron Cohen first acted in theatrical productions featuring the Socialist-Zionist youth movement Habonim Dror.[12]
He spent a year in Israel at Kibbutz Rosh HaNikra and Kibbutz Beit HaEmek as part of the Shnat Habonim Dror, before matriculating to university.[13]
According to Baron Cohen, "I wouldn't say that I am a religious Jew, but I'm still proud to be Jewish."[14] However, he keeps kosher and generally observes the Jewish Sabbath, refusing to answer the phone on Shabbat.[6][15][16]
Baron Cohen frequently speaks in Hebrew and Polish while playing the anti-Semitic character Borat. He also sang the lyrics from an old Hebrew folk song in an episode of Da Ali G Show. Additionally he identifies his country's greatest scientist, who he says discovered a woman's brain is the same size as that of a squirrel, as "Dr Yarmulke". (A yarmulke, or kippah, is the skullcap worn by Jews.)

In the early 1990s Baron Cohen was hosting a weekly program on Windsor cable television's local broadcasts alongside Carol Kirkwood, who has become the BBC anchor for weather broadcasts. He was fired by Windsor TV for broadcasting a lewd presentation for St. 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; during this period he made his first feature film appearance. He also presented the Teenage program F2F.

After a brief office-work career which included a stint at investment bank Goldman Sachs,[19][20] Baron Cohen went back into acting, appearing during 2-minute sketches as his fashion reporter Bruno on The Paramount Comedy Channel during 1998. He shot to fame when his comic character Ali G, an idiotic Junglist, started appearing on The Eleven O'Clock Show on Channel 4, which first went to air September 8, 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.


Baron Cohen's second alter ego is 'Bruno' (sometimes written Brüno), a gay Austrian fashion show presenter, who often lures his subjects into unwittingly making provocative statements and engaging in embarrassing behavior, as well as leading them to contradict themselves, often in the same interview. Bruno asks the subjects to answer 'yes or no' questions with either "Vassap" (yes), or "Ich don't think so" (no), or sometimes "Ach, ja!" (oh yes!) or "Nicht, nicht" (not, not). 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, so for instance the aforesaid indifference towards potentially upsetting Holocaust references is intended to reveal a certain insularity surrounding the cultural context of the interviewee.
Plans are underway for Baron Cohen to bring Bruno to the big screen, and after an intense bidding war that included such Hollywood powerhouses as DreamWorks, Sony, and 20th Century Fox; Universal Pictures paid a reported $42.5 million for the rights to the movie. According to insiders, Baron Cohen himself is getting paid $13 million upfront, and will also receive 15% of the box office take. That means if the film (tentatively titled "Brüno") does as well as "Borat", Baron Cohen stands to make approximately $30 million.

Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, a feature film with "Borat" at the centre, was screened at the 2006 Toronto International Film Festival and released in the United Kingdom November 2, 2006, in the United States on November 3, 2006 and Australia November 23, 2006. 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 the hobgoblins of American culture, including 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. 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 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 one sketch from the TV show (and as such, not included in the film), Borat performs at a small-town USA bar singing an anti-Semitic song called 'In My Country There is Problem' (including lyrics such as "Throw the Jew down the well!", "You must grab [the Jew] by his horns" and "[The Jews] take everybody['s] money; they never give it back"), with many in the bar singing along.[22]
Although the character Borat is Kazakh, he frequently begins segments with Polish expressions "Jak się masz?" (How are you?), "Dzień dobry" (Good day) and "Dziekuję" (Thank you). His use of "Boutrous" was used on BBC's The Fast Show sketches, and Mahir "I Kiss You" Çağrı publicly claims much of the Borat character was based on him. Borat's favorite singer is Korki Buchek. He sings the famous song "Bing Bang". In one scene of the film, Borat encounters some men from Atlanta, Georgia. When asked of his favourite music, he shares the name Korki Buchek and proceeds to sing a song, which causes the men from Atlanta to laugh at him.
In 2007 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.[23], however on 21st Dec it was announced Borat would retire'

Sacha Baron CohenSzületett: 1971. október 13., LondonJelenleg 37 éves.

Filmjei:

2006 - Borat - Kazah nép nagy fehér gyermeke menni művelődni Amerika (Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan)

2002 - Ali G Indahouse

Filmek, melyekben közreműködött:

2008 - Madagaszkár 2. - Az elveszett sziget (Madagascar 2) Julien (szinkronhang)
2007 - Sweeney Todd - A Fleet Street démoni borbélya (Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street) Signor Adolfo Pirelli
2006 - Taplógáz (Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby) Jean Girard
2005 - Madagaszkár (Madagascar) King Julian, a lemúr (szinkronhang)

Díjak és jelölések:

2007 - Golden Globe-díj - a legjobb vígjáték vagy musical színész (Borat - Kazah nép nagy fehér gyermeke menni művelődni Amerika)
2007 - Oscar-jelölés - a legjobb adaptált forgatókönyv (Borat - Kazah nép nagy fehér gyermeke menni művelődni Amerika)