‘Borat 2’s’ Maria Bakalova Talks About Filming *That* Scene With Rudy Giuliani

When Borat Subsequent Moviefilm began streaming on Amazon in late October, the internet tittered over a scene in which President Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani gets himself into a compromising situation with star Maria Bakalova. Bakalova, who played Tutar Sagdiyev, the 15-year-old daughter of Sacha Baron Cohen’s Borat, talked with The New York Times about her breakout role and how she doesn’t feel bad for allowing Giuliani to show his true colors.

“We’d been talking a lot about different scenarios,” Bakalova, who is a native of Bulgaria, told the Times of her scene with Giuliani. “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.”

In the satirical film, which is part mockumentary, part documentary, Bakalova’s Tutar, who gets a job as a journalist at the end of the film, sets up an interview with Giuliani for what he believed to be a conservative news outlet.

I was nervous, Bakalova said. My heart was racing. But Sacha was like, you should be nervous in this situation. So use your nerves.

After the cringey sit down, Giuliani encourages Tutar into a back bedroom in the hotel suite, and hidden cameras capture a conspicuous moment where Giuliani has his hand reached into his pants and his shirt is partially untucked. When the film debuted, Giuliani went public stating that the scene is “a complete fabrication” and that he was tucking in his shirt after taking off the recording equipment.

“I saw everything that you saw,” Bakalova said of the scene. “If you saw the movie, that’s our message. We want everybody to see the movie and judge for themselves.” And though Bakalova will not make any conclusions about what Giuliani may have been up to before he was cut off by Cohen’s surprise arrival, she doesn’t feel bad for any implications that have come out of the scene.

Movies like this are showing people’s true colors, she continued. It’s going to show Rudy’s real character. You’re responsible for your own decisions. So, no, I don’t feel bad.

Sorry not sorry, Rudy. In this situation, the former mayor of New York really has no one to blame but himself.