Maria Bakalova, the scene-stealing co-star of the new Borat sequel, told The New York Times that she was glad actor Sacha Baron Cohen interrupted the now-infamous hotel-room moment with former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani when he did.
“Sacha jumped into the room quickly, because he’s been worried about me,” she told the newspaper.
“So, if he were late, I don’t know how things were going to go. But he came just in time.”
In the film, Bakalova – who is 24 – plays Borat’s 15-year-old daughter, Tutar, who scores an interview with Giuliani, personal attorney to President Donald Trump.
After the interview, which was conducted in a hotel suite, they head into a bedroom. Bakalova helps Giuliani remove his mic and Giuliani lies back in bed and sticks his hands down his trousers, which he has insisted was to tuck his shirt back in.
That’s when Cohen’s Borat burst into the room.
“She’s 15, she’s too old for you,” he said as he and Bakalova fled the scene.
Giuliani called the police.
“I was kind of scared that something would happen,” Bakalova told the Times. “But fortunately, we escaped.”
So was Giuliani really tucking in his shirt?
“We want everybody to see the movie and judge for themselves,” she said at first. Asked again, she took a long pause.
“What do you think he was doing?” she asked.
So did Bakalova feel bad for Giuliani after he became the butt of jokes around the world because of the scene?
“Movies like this are showing people’s true colours,” she said. “It’s going to show Rudy’s real character. You’re responsible for your own decisions. So, no, I don’t feel bad.”