Sacha Baron Cohen
Actor, comedian, writer, director and producer, born in London in 1971. The man behind Ali G, Borat, Brüno and Aladeen, and since 2019 a speaker in his own name on antisemitism and the responsibilities of the platforms.
- Born
- October 13, 1971, Hammersmith, London
- Education
- Christ's College, Cambridge (History)
- Awards
- Two Golden Globes, two BAFTA Television Awards, three Academy Award nominations, the ADL International Leadership Award. All awards
- Now
- Ali G: Who Iz I?, now streaming on Prime Video
Cambridge
Sacha Baron Cohen was born in Hammersmith, London, on October 13, 1971, and grew up in a Jewish family, the son of a menswear shop owner and a movement instructor. He read History at Christ's College, Cambridge. His undergraduate thesis, on the cooperation between Black and Jewish Americans in the civil rights movement, was researched at the Martin Luther King Center in Atlanta and won a prize. The subject has stayed with him: in 2023 he stood with the King family at the 60th anniversary of the March on Washington.
Comedy
Cambridge was also where he performed, in the Footlights and in student theatre. After university he modelled and hosted a satellite television show where the first characters appeared. In 1998 one of them, a suburban wannabe called Ali G, was given a slot on Channel 4's The 11 O'Clock Show. Within two years Ali G had his own series.
The characters
Da Ali G Show on Channel 4 in 2000 won two BAFTA Television Awards and introduced Borat, a reporter from Kazakhstan, and Brüno, an Austrian fashion correspondent. Ali G Indahouse followed in 2002, then an HBO run in 2003 and 2004 in which Ali G interviewed Newt Gingrich, Buzz Aldrin and Boutros Boutros-Ghali. Borat's 2006 film was a worldwide phenomenon and brought a Golden Globe and an Academy Award nomination for its screenplay. Brüno came in 2009.
Beyond the hidden camera
By then his face was too well known for that kind of work, and the work moved to script and to other people's films. He wrote and starred in The Dictator (2012), voiced King Julien in four Madagascar films, and took on Thénardier in Les Misérables, the Station Inspector in Martin Scorsese's Hugo, Time in Alice Through the Looking Glass and the Israeli agent Eli Cohen in The Spy. In 2018 he went back behind prosthetics for Who Is America?. In 2020 he played Abbie Hoffman in The Trial of the Chicago 7, which brought his second Academy Award nomination, and revived Borat for a second film, which brought his third. Since then: Disclaimer for Alfonso Cuarón, Ladies First and Balls Up. In 2026 he directs for the first time.
In his own name
In November 2019 he accepted the Anti-Defamation League's International Leadership Award and used the keynote to argue that the largest internet companies had become the greatest propaganda machine in history. He has written and spoken since, under his own name, on antisemitism, conspiracy theories and the health of democracy, co-founded Stop Hate for Profit, and funded humanitarian work in Syria, Yemen, Somalia and Sudan and a school hall in Malawi. The speeches and the essay are in Activism, his statements in Statements.
The method
Every character works the same way. A person who could not possibly be taken seriously is placed in front of people who take themselves very seriously, and the camera records what they do next. Some correct him. Most do not. What they say instead is the point.
Now
His first feature film as director, Ali G: Who Iz I?, was released on October 23, 2026 by Amazon MGM Studios, twenty years after the character last led a film, and is now streaming on Prime Video.