'Borat 2' Breakout Star Maria Bakalova Opens Up About Her Encounter With Rudy Giuliani

“Borat 2” breakout star Maria Bakalova has finally broken her silence on one of the much-talked-about scenes in the film featuring Rudy Giuliani.

Speaking in an interview with The New York Times, the 24-year-old actress from Bulgaria, who played the character of Tutar Sagdiyev in the sequel, shared some specific details about the movie and revealed how she felt while performing the climax scene with the former mayor of New York City.

Bakalova told the publication that she was understandably “nervous” while doing the scene, saying her “heart was racing.” However, she knew that Sacha Baron Cohen would come and save her if something inappropriate happened during the scene.

The actress also explained how she prepared for the scene with Giuliani.

“We’d been talking a lot about different scenarios. How should I act, this way or this way? What should I do? What is smarter? But in all of the scenarios, I was confident that Sacha will save me and he will save the scene, so it’s not going to be a disaster,” NYT quoted Bakalova, as saying.

The “Transgression” star called Cohen her “guardian angel” for coming “just in time” in the hotel room where she and Giuliani were present.

“He’s my guardian angel. Sacha jumped into the room quickly, because he’s been worried about me. So, if he were late, I don’t know how things were going to go. But he came just in time. Sacha, he’s my nonbiological father and he will be like that forever. So I trusted him from the beginning and I knew he would never put me in a dangerous situation,” Bakalova said.

In the scene, Giuliani was shown in a compromising position with Bakalova’s character. The former mayor has already said that that he was simply readjusting his clothing after taking off the electronic recording equipment from the interview.

When asked if Giuliani had some malicious intent while filming the scene, Bakalova said that she saw “everything” that the viewers also did, so it is up to them how they want to interpret that situation.

“I saw everything that you saw. If you saw the movie, that’s our message. We want everybody to see the movie and judge for themselves,” Bakalova said during the interview.

“Borat Subsequent Moviefilm” opened to universal acclaim and took Bakalova’s popularity to a whole new level. Cohen has already said that if Bakalova does not get recognized for her work at the Oscars, then “that’s a travesty.”