Not many people can claim that they were kicked out of the state of New York twice, but Sacha Baron Cohen isn’t most people. During a visit to “The Tonight Show” (in New York) to promote his Apple TV+ series “Disclaimer,” Cohen told Jimmy Fallon exactly what led to him being booted both times.
“I thought it was a little bit over the top,” Cohen told Fallon on “The Tonight Show” Thursday night.
Not surprisingly, the evacuations happened while he was filming “Borat” and “Borat 2.” The first time Cohen was encouraged to leave the state, he was filming a scene at the Wellington Hotel.
“Borat thought that when he bought the room for 200 bucks, he bought everything in the room. So I started carrying out the bed and the furniture,” Cohen explained as Fallon and the studio audience laughed. “They called the police, and they arrested the line producer and the first AD.”
But because Cohen and his team filmed most of their New York scenes around 5th Avenue, they all occurred in the same precinct. After a while, the head of precinct knew who he was and wanted Cohen gone.
“He knew it was me. So I was encouraged to leave the state and left the state then,” Cohen said.
The second time the satirical star was kicked out was more frightening. “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm” was filmed in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, which meant New York City in particular was under lockdown. The buzziest part of the movie includes an interview between Borat’s daughter Tutar Sagdiyev (Maria Bakalova) and former New York mayor and advisor to Donald Trump Rudy Giuliani.
In the movie, a flustered Tutar interviews Giuliani and seems to flirt with him, touching his knee and giggling at his jokes. At the crux of the scene, she brings the former mayor to her hotel bedroom, presumably to fix his mic. When Giuliani seems to be unzipping his pants, Cohen as Borat runs in wearing women’s underwear, saying that he does not condone this union and that Giuliani can have sex with him instead.
Before the interview, which took place at a hotel “I won’t name for legal reasons,” a cop was supposed to sweep the room. Since the interview hinged on Borat appearing mid-interview, the team built a fake back to a wardrobe that was big enough to hide Cohen without being detectable to the cop.
“The thing happens, Rudy freaks out, and suddenly the cop comes into the room. And he says you’re staying right here,” Cohen told Fallon.
At that point, Cohen knew that he had a car waiting for him downstairs as his escape route. Thinking fast, he stayed in character as Borat and told the cop, “No, you cannot. This is my property. That will be false imprisonment under your New York statute.” Somehow that worked, and Cohen was able to run out of the hotel room.
“My lawyer calls me up — the same lawyer who told me to get out of the state in ‘Borat 1.’ Basically, Giuliani or somebody had called a variety of police and law enforcement agencies. They had started descending on the hotel,” Cohen said. “My lawyer said, ‘Get the hell out of the state.’”
The cops tried to impound the footage but were unsuccessful. Despite his lawyer’s warnings, Cohen didn’t take the threat seriously until he called a New York detective he knew.
Originally, Cohen explained the situation to the detective without using Giuliani’s name, which caused his friend to say, “You don’t need to do anything.” But when Cohen told him it was Giuliani, his tune immediately changed.
“He goes, ‘Get the hell out of the state,’” Cohen said. Watch the full interview above.
