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Creator / Sacha Baron Cohen

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Sacha Noam Baron Cohen (born 13 October 1971) is an English comedian, actor, clownnote , and gadfly extraordinaire best known for his fictional personas (including British gangsta-wannabe Ali G, racist and backward Kazakh journalist Borat Sagdiyev, gay Austrian fashonista Brüno Gehard, and the Gaddafi-like Arab dictator Admiral General Aladeen), which are generally used to provoke reactions from people who don't know they're fictional so as to expose their own bigotry and for really dark Black Comedy.

The effectiveness of his comedy can be attributed to elements including his total commitment to his characters (such that he almost never breaks character) and his incredibly sharp improv skills. These elements combine to give his unsuspecting interview subjects the impression that they're sitting down with a real, and really stupid, person; sometimes, they may even mock him and joke at his expense, unaware that the joke is really on them. If Peter Sellers and Andy Kaufman had a child, he would be it.note 

As his mainstream profile's grown, Baron Cohen has branched out into more traditional acting roles, showing that he has the chops to handle serious drama with nuance.

He's married to Isla Fisher, with whom he has three children. He's also the younger brother of musician Erran Baron Cohen, with whom he frequently collaborates, as well as the cousin of neuroscientist Simon Baron Cohen.


Works featuring Sacha Baron Cohen's characters include:

Other works in which Sacha Baron Cohen has appeared include:


Tropes related to Baron Cohen and his films:

  • Man of a Thousand Faces: His specialty lies in radically altering his personality, mannerisms, and physical appearance, for each of the characters he portrays, often assisted by pounds of prosthetic makeup, so as to be totally unrecognizable by any unsuspecting marks.
  • Man of a Thousand Voices: Another of his trademarks. This guy can do any accent, which is helpful in playing a variety of characters all of different ethnicities.
  • N-Word Privileges: The only way that Sacha could ever get away with a character like Borat, singing a song called "Throw the Jew Down the Well...", is if he were actually Jewish in real life.
  • Reclusive Artist: A necessity if you want to mess with total strangers and not have them recognize you.
  • Star-Making Role: Borat. Prior to that, he was known to moviegoers for his role as Jean Girard in Talladega Nights after breaking out on TV with Da Ali G Show. On the voice-acting side, his role as King Julien in Madagascar was a big part in the series' success.
  • Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: His comedy style largely consists of trolling people in a very jerkass way. Not only have people tried to arrest him, but more than one person has physically assaulted him. Seriously, act obnoxious in public and see how quickly people get violent.
  • Tall, Dark, and Snarky: Well, "snarky" in the "saying ridiculous things and getting people to take them completely seriously" sense. Baron Cohen stands an impressive 6'3" (1.91 m), and frequently makes use of his substantial height to make his already cartoonish characters seem that much more larger-than-life, pun not intended.
    • He was very snarky in his Anti-Defamation League speech.
  • Troll: Famously. Virtually all his characters are outrageous caricatures meant to make fun of real people by either pushing their buttons or playing into their own biases, usually both at the same time.
  • Unsympathetic Comedy Protagonist: Most of his characters are this by default, in order to make the trolling work. Often they are an outright Villain Protagonist.

 
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Borat Gets Detained

When Borat gets arrested for attempting to kidnap Pamala Anderson, he shouts, "I am not attracted to you anymore! NOT!"

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