Photo: Bryan R. Smith / AFP) (Photo by BRYAN R. SMITH / AFP via Getty Images
Like anyone who watched Borat Subsequent Moviefilm you can attest, it would be distressing enough to film an interview with a Rudy Giuliani unmasked in a hotel room during a pandemic. He even refused a COVID-19 test! According to the film’s producer, Monica Levinson, however, the real scare came after Giuliani’s segment with Maria Bakalova’s fake teenage daughter, Tutar, came to an abrupt end after the arrival of Sacha Baron Cohen, dressed in lingerie, like Borat. According to Levinson’s participation in a Producers’ Guild of America panel on Saturday, the former New York mayor allegedly tried to get the filmmakers to be detained by the police.
“He claimed that we were trying to extort him at the time, which we didn’t ask for,” she explained, by Deadline. “He called all of his New York cops and said extortion, which was a federal crime. Too smart to bring that up. ”The cast and crew were later prevented from entering the hotel room they used for filming.
Although they wisely smuggled the footage they needed, Levinson says that she and her fellow filmmakers were unable to retrieve the equipment in time. “We would hide the tapes in our pants. There are always ways to ensure that data is collected, ”she recalls. “In fact, we had to rent new equipment. It was a very stressful period that night, because the hotel wouldn’t let us take anything out of the rooms. “
Having spent 19 hours in prison herself while filming the first Borat Levinson and his team decided to leave the five neighborhoods entirely, just in case. “We ended up talking to our lawyers,” she says. “I called the production team and said, ‘We’re going to take everyone to New Jersey tonight.’ It was eleven o’clock at night. I didn’t want what happened to me in the first film to happen to the whole team ”. So, although Rudy didn’t get what he wanted on that particular day, I hope he gets the next best thing: a message from Bakalova when she wins the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress this year, next month.