Amazon Prime Video
Considering the sheer dearth of options this year, Borat Subsequent Moviefilm star Maria Bakalova has to be nominated for an Academy Award, right? Comedy, drama, or otherwise, Bakalova’s performance as Borat’s daughter Tutar is so utterly bold, fearless, and most importantly, believable, that her work deserves award season recognition.
That said, regardless of whether or not she gets the proper critical recognition is sort of inconsequential as she’s already gotten the all-important public recognition. The opinion that she’s the star of Borat Subsequent Moviefilm is essentially unanimous, and as a result, Bakalova has been making movie star moves such as signing with the famed talent agency CAA and sitting down for a profile interview with The New York Times.
During the course of that sitdown, the 24-year-old Bulgarian actress discussed what everyone who’s seen Borat has been waiting to hear: her side of the instantly-infamous Rudy Giuliani scene, saying that moment was the one time she was “scared” during production.
“Maybe the scene when we were at the hotel and Rudy Giuliani called the police, I was kind of scared that something would happen. But fortunately, we escaped,” Bakalova said.
“I was nervous. My heart was racing. But Sacha was like, you should be nervous in this situation. So use your nerves. Convert them and accept them and they’re going to help you through everything”
“I saw everything that you saw,” the actress said of Giuliani’s actions. “If you saw the movie, that’s our message. We want everybody to see the movie and judge for themselves…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.” [via The New York Times]
Perhaps most tellingly, when The Times asked her what she thought Rudy was doing with his pants, Bakalova paused and simply responded: “What do *you* think he was doing?”
You can check out the full interview with Bakalova over at The New York Times and stream Borat Subsequent Moviefilm over on Amazon Prime Video.
Subscribe and listen to our pop culture podcast, The Post-Credit Podcast, and follow us on Twitter @PostCredPod
(Apple | Spotify | Google Podcasts | Stitcher | Anchor)