How Sacha Baron Cohen Kept ‘Borat Subsequent Moviefilm’ Script Top Secret

Sacha Baron Cohen’s “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm” was made and released at a time when the country was in political turmoil, but he managed to produce the Golden Globes-winning motion picture using a genius plan that involved using a lot of typos in the script.

The second “Borat” film may have been nothing but an ambush comedy for some, but it did more than just bring in a lot of laughs. The movie actually has a more serious political purpose — a warning about autocracy as America moves away from democracy, Cohen said in an interview with Financial Times.

The 49-year-old Hollywood actor also admitted that they made the movie in secret as they wanted to put out a strong message to the public ahead of the 2020 election. And part of that process was keeping the script for the project very secretive so as not to spill any detail to the press ahead of the movie’s release.

Cohen’s longtime collaborator Anthony Hines, who served as producer and head writer for the project, also explained how they kept the script secret. According to him, Cohen cleverly made typos in the script to make it confusing.

“Sacha would think this would be an unbreakable code,” Hines told The Hollywood Reporter, noting that due to the typos, Cohen’s character changed multiple times.

He also admitted that the early drafts were constantly changed on purpose to maintain the secrecy of the project.

Due to the changes, “Borat's nationality changed about five times. He went from being Guatemalan to Bulgarian to Moldovan to Azerbaijani,” said Hines, who then revealed that despite the attempt at making the script impossible to decode, it was futile because “anyone within three minutes would figure it out.”

Director Jason Woliner also said a similar thing about the script when he detailed what it was like when he was approached to helm the movie. He said that the script was delivered to him via an encrypted link that was designed to expire in a matter of hours. Just like Hines, he quickly decoded the material after reading it.

As for Cohen, he disclosed in a previous interview that his ultimate goal in making the sequel was to give a wake-up call to the people who supported former President Donald Trump, especially in the run-up to the 2020 election.

“I felt that American democracy was in peril, and I couldn't be a bystander. As a comedian and an actor, there's not much you can do other than doing your work. I felt I had no other option than to bring Borat back, because he was this perfect tool to get those who follow Trump to reveal what they were ready to tolerate,” he said.

Cohen’s efforts paid off as the second “Borat” film managed to bag trophies from different award-giving bodies. He is even set to receive the outstanding performer of the year award at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival on April 7.

“Borat Subsequent Moviefilm” chronicles the adventures of Kazakh funnyman Borat Sagdiyev (Cohen) after he was released from prison in his home country. He returns to America with his 15-year-old daughter Tutar (Maria Bakalova) and offers her as a bride to Vice President Mike Pence amid the pandemic and ahead of the election.