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Sacha Baron Cohen

Sacha Baron CohenAKA Sacha Noam Baron Cohen

Born: 13-Oct-1971
Birthplace: London, England

Gender: Male
Religion: Jewish
Race or Ethnicity: White
Sexual orientation: Straight
Occupation: Comic, Hoaxer, TV Personality

Nationality: England
Executive summary: Boyakasha! Respec

Sacha Baron Cohen's father is Welsh, his mother Persian and Jewish, and he was educated at Christ's College, earning a degree in history with a thesis on the American civil rights movement. On camera he is usually in character as either the over-blinged blueblood 'Ali G', the Kazakhstani correspondent 'Borat Sagdiyev', or the gay bon vivant 'Bruno'.

In his first appearance on TV, he had a small part in a 1995 comedy special on Britain's Channel 4, Jack And Jeremy's Police 4, spoofing cop shows by showing officers trained in brutality and conducting a poll on whether a young lawbreaker should be freed or simply executed. After filming the program, though, Baron Cohen went back to work in the offices of a local television production company.

It was almost four years before he was hired as Ali G for The 11 O'Clock Show, a late-1990s sketch comedy show on Britain's Channel 4. He was given only a few minutes per episode, but audiences wanted more, so his bit was spun off as Da Ali G Show. First for Channel 4 and later for HBO, Ali G has conducted preposterous interviews with newsmakers from Alexander Haig to Jenna Jameson, Sally Jessy Raphael to Boutros Boutros-Ghali.

Borat is based on a doctor Baron Cohen says he met in Russia, who conversed with him in eagerly fractured English. The clueless, sex-obsessed Borat portrays Kazakhs as people who punch cows, drink wine made from horse urine, and enjoy the alleged folk song "Throw the Jew Down the Well". Since he chose to poke fun of a real nation, the Kazakh Foreign Ministry threatened legal action against the comedian for presenting their country in a "derogatory way". Their complaints only made Borat seem even funnier, so Kazakhstani officials changed tactics and invited Baron Cohen to visit, but also purchased a series of TV commercials and print advertisements in the US, touting "the real Kazakhstan".

His first feature film was The Jolly Boys' Last Stand in 2000, a story of a group of young buddies trying to keep one of their own from becoming an adult. His first leading role on screen was Ali G Indahouse, showing Ali G's unlikely rise to Prime Minister of Britain. He voiced King Julian the Lemur in the cartoon Madagascar, played the villainous French race car driver in Talladega Nights, and starred in Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan.

He provided the English-language narration for the charming but unfunny 1997 Hebrew documentary Yatzati L'Hapes Ahavah: Techef Ashuv (Out for Love... Be Back Shortly). In 2002, during a trip to Israel, a stray bullet pierced the wall of Baron Cohen's room at the Intercontinental Hotel in Tel Aviv, bouncing off the window but not injuring the comedian. When he reported the incident to hotel staff, it was discovered that two young Israeli men had killed themselves in an adjacent room, but apparently missed on their first shot.

His brother, Erran Baron Cohen, is a trumpet player and composer who wrote the musical score for Borat. His cousin, Simon Baron Cohen, is a professor of developmental psychopathology at Cambridge and an authority on autism. His wife is Oman-born Scottish-Australian actress Isla Fisher, best known down under for the soap opera Home and Away, in the UK for the mini-series Hearts and Bones, and in America as the virgin seduced by Vince Vaughn in The Wedding Crashers.

Father: Gerald Baron Cohen (owns a menswear shop)
Mother: Daniella Weiser
Brother: Erran Baron Cohen (composer)
Brother: Amnon Baron Cohen (computer chip designer)
Wife: Isla Fisher (Australian actress, m. 15-Mar-2010, two daughters, one son)
Daughter: Olive (b. 17-Oct-2007 or 19-Oct-2007, depending on report)
Daughter: Elula Lottie Miriam (b. 2010)
Son: Montgomery Moses Brian (b. 2015)

    High School: Haberdashers Askes School, Borehamwood, Hertfordshire, England
    University: BA History, Christ's College, Cambridge University

    Cambridge Footlights
    Coolest Headshots
    International Rescue Committee $500,000 donation (2015)
    Save the Children $500,000 donation (2015)
    Israeli Ancestry
    Welsh Ancestry
    Jewish Ancestry

    TELEVISION
    Da Ali G Show

    FILMOGRAPHY AS ACTOR
    Alice Through the Looking Glass (10-May-2016)
    The Brothers Grimsby (24-Feb-2016)
    Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues (24-Nov-2013)
    Les Misérables (5-Dec-2012)
    Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted (18-May-2012) · Julien [VOICE]
    The Dictator (16-May-2012)
    Hugo (10-Oct-2011)
    Brüno (25-Jun-2009) · Brüno
    Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa (30-Oct-2008) [VOICE]
    Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (21-Dec-2007)
    Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (4-Aug-2006) · Borat Sagdiyev
    Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby (4-Aug-2006)
    Madagascar (27-May-2005) [VOICE]
    Ali G Indahouse (22-Mar-2002) · Ali G
    The Jolly Boys Last Stand (18-Aug-2000)

Official Website:
http://www.boyakasha.co.uk/


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