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Sacha Baron Cohen

Born 13 Oct 1971, in London

Sacha Noam Baron Cohen (born October 13, 1971) is a British comedian, writer and a Golden Globe-winning actor most noted for his comic characters Ali G (a junglist-hip hop gangsta wannabe from suburban Staines), Borat (a Kazakh reporter), 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.

<b>Controversies:</b>

Baron Cohen has encountered several controversies regarding some of his comic characters.

* Two residents of Glod, the Romanian village in which the opening scenes of Borat were filmed, hired US attorney Edward Fagan to sue the makers of Borat for $30 million. They allege the intent of the film was misrepresented to them, that the poorest members of their village were made to look like "savages", and that they were underpaid, particularly when their minute salaries were compared to the millions earned by the completed movie. During several unaired segments, kids were filmed with guns and other weapons and in another scene, an amputee who lost his arm was told to wear a rubber fist sex toy. The lawsuit was dismissed in a New York hearing on the grounds that the allegations were too vague to stand up in court.

* In an interview with Neil Hamilton in 2000, Ali G offered Hamilton what was allegedly marijuana, which Hamilton accepted and smoked, creating some minor controversy in the British media.

* Baron Cohen has had some troubles because of racist or prejudiced comments his characters have made (see Da Ali G Show). HBO spokesman Quentin Schaffer has replied to the criticisms: 'Through his alter-egos, he delivers an obvious satire that exposes people's ignorance and prejudice in much the same way All in the Family did years ago.'

Regarding his portrayal as the anti-Semitic Borat, Baron Cohen says the segments are a "dramatic demonstration of how racism feeds on dumb conformity, as much as rabid bigotry," rather than a display of racism by Baron Cohen himself. "Borat essentially works as a tool. By himself being anti-Semitic, he lets people lower their guard and expose their own prejudice," Baron Cohen explains. Addressing the same topic in an NPR interview with Robert Siegel, Baron Cohen says "...and I think that's quite an interesting thing with Borat, which is people really let down their guard with him because they're in a room with somebody who seems to have these outrageous opinions. They sometimes feel much more relaxed about letting their own outrageous, politically incorrect, prejudiced opinions come out." Baron Cohen, the grandson of a Holocaust survivor, says he also wishes in particular to expose the role of indifference in that genocide. "When I was in university, there was this major historian of the Third Reich, Ian Kershaw, who said, 'The path to Auschwitz was paved with indifference.' I know it's not very funny being a comedian talking about the Holocaust, but it's an interesting idea that not everyone in Germany had to be a raving anti-Semite. They just had to be apathetic."[6] Regarding the enthusiastic response to his song "In My Country There is Problem", he says, "Did it reveal that they were anti-Semitic? Perhaps. But maybe it just revealed that they were indifferent to anti-Semitism."

* The government of Kazakhstan threatened Baron Cohen with legal action after the MTV Europe Music Awards ceremony in Lisbon, and the authority in charge of the country's country-code top-level domain name removed the website that he had created for his character Borat (previously: http://www.borat.kz) for alleged violation of the law — specifically, registering for the domain under a false name. The New York Times, (among others), has reported that Baron Cohen, (in character as Borat), replied: "I'd like to state that I have no connection with Mr Cohen and fully support my government decision to sue this Jew." He was, however, recently defended by Dariga Nazarbayeva, a politician and the daughter of Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev, who stated 'We should not be afraid of humour and we shouldn't try to control everything, I think.' The deputy foreign minister of Kazakhstan has recently invited Baron Cohen to visit the country, stating that he could learn that 'women drive cars, wine is made of grapes, and Jews are free to go to synagogues.'

* Baron Cohen encountered another problem around his Borat character. Two of the three University of South Carolina students who appear in Borat sued the filmmakers, alleging that they were duped into signing release forms while drunk, and that false promises were made that the footage was for a documentary that would never be screened in the USA. On 11 December 2006, a Los Angeles judge denied the pair a restraining order to remove them from the film. The lawsuit was dismissed in February 2007.

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