Sacha Baron Cohen’s comedy depends on a gap: his characters appear to take their own absurd assumptions seriously, while the people they encounter are left to decide how seriously to take them. From Ali G’s interviews on British television to Borat’s journey through the United States, that method made Cohen internationally recognised—and made the reactions to his work part of the performance. His career began in London and developed through British television, but its questions about prejudice, power and public behaviour have travelled well beyond Britain.

From Hammersmith to television

Cohen was born in Hammersmith, London, on 13 October 1971. He attended St Columba’s College in St Albans before moving to Haberdashers’ Aske’s Boys’ School in Elstree. At Christ’s College, Cambridge, he studied history, focusing on antisemitism, and graduated in 1993. His student performances were with the Cambridge University Amateur Dramatic Club, including productions of Fiddler on the Roof and Cyrano de Bergerac. He also performed with the Labour youth movement Habonim Dror.

After university, Cohen worked as a fashion model and presented a weekly programme on Windsor cable television. In 1995, an audition tape led to work presenting Pump TV; the following year he presented the youth chat programme F2F. He also trained in clowning at the École Philippe Gaulier in Paris. These early experiences provided a route into television, but it was a character he brought to Channel 4’s The 11 O’Clock Show that made his name.

Ali G and the art of the interview

Ali G is a fictional young man from Staines who imitates aspects of British Jamaican and urban hip-hop culture. Cohen’s performance sets the character’s confidence against the formality of interviews with public figures, often drawing out answers that make the encounter uncomfortable or unexpectedly revealing. Ali G first appeared on The 11 O’Clock Show in 1998. Cohen won Best Newcomer at the 1999 British Comedy Awards, and Da Ali G Show began in 2000. The programme won a BAFTA for Best Comedy the following year.

The character’s life extended beyond the original programme: Cohen played Ali G in the 2002 film Ali G Indahouse, and the show was later made for American television. The format’s central device was not simply a comic accent or costume. Interviewees could mistake Ali G for a genuine interviewer, giving Cohen room to expose the assumptions and awkwardness of the exchange. That uncertainty—who is performing, and who is being examined?—became a defining feature of his character work.

Borat, Brüno and the boundary of satire

Borat Sagdiyev, a fictional Kazakh journalist, appeared in television sketches before becoming the centre of Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (2006). The mockumentary follows Borat in the United States, where his exaggerated ignorance and breaches of social convention prompt encounters with people who do not always recognise the performance. The film received an Academy Award nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay, shared by Cohen and his co-writers. Cohen also won a Golden Globe for his performance.

Brüno, a flamboyant Austrian fashion reporter, had appeared in sketches before the 2009 film named for him. Like Borat, the character uses interviews and social situations to coax people into exposing their own attitudes; the comedy also targets the fashion and celebrity worlds. Cohen’s work has attracted criticism for the prejudiced views voiced by his characters. He has described Borat’s antisemitism as a way of exposing other people’s prejudice, rather than endorsing it. That intention does not settle every argument about the method, but it helps explain why the audience’s response is central to the design of the satire.

Other characters expanded the approach. In The Dictator (2012), Cohen played Admiral General Aladeen, ruler of the fictional Republic of Wadiya. In the television series Who Is America? (2018), he adopted several identities to interview people about politics and public life. The disguises changed; the recurring comic situation remained a meeting in which a subject’s confidence, convictions or willingness to participate became part of the material.

Film roles and work beyond comedy

Cohen’s screen career has included supporting roles, voice work and performances in drama as well as his own comic projects. He played Signor Adolfo Pirelli in Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007), Inspector Gustav Dasté in Hugo (2011), and Thénardier in Les Misérables (2012). He voiced King Julien in the Madagascar films and Uncle Ugo in Luca (2021).

In The Trial of the Chicago 7 (2020), he portrayed American activist Abbie Hoffman. The performance earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor. He also returned to Borat in Borat Subsequent Moviefilm (2020), winning another Golden Globe for the role. Later television work included playing Israeli agent Eli Cohen in The Spy (2019), Robert Ravenscroft in Disclaimer (2024), and Mephisto in the 2025 miniseries Ironheart.

Advocacy and public life

Cohen has also used public appearances to speak about antisemitism, racism and online hate. In 2019, he received the Anti-Defamation League’s International Leadership Award. In his acceptance speech he criticised major technology companies and their handling of hate speech. He helped establish Stop Hate For Profit, a campaign joined by civil-rights groups that called for pressure on companies over their platforms’ treatment of hate and misinformation.

His philanthropy has included support for children and families affected by conflict and displacement. In 2015, Cohen and Isla Fisher donated to Save the Children’s measles-vaccination work in northern Syria and to the International Rescue Committee’s work with Syrian refugees. In 2020, they partnered with Marc Benioff to send personal protective equipment to NHS workers in the UK during the COVID-19 pandemic. Cohen also spoke at the 2023 anniversary of the March on Washington, addressing racism, antisemitism and anti-LGBTQ prejudice.

Why Sacha Baron Cohen deserves a place in British Legacy

Cohen’s place in British cultural life rests on a body of work that began in British television and found an unusually portable form of satire. Ali G emerged on Channel 4’s The 11 O’Clock Show, then developed into Da Ali G Show and a feature film. The character’s interviews made British settings and speech part of the joke, while their structure invited viewers to consider how authority and prejudice can surface in an apparently ordinary conversation. The later success of Borat and Brüno carried a recognisable performance method to international audiences without separating it from the questions that had made it effective.

That method is not beyond dispute: Cohen’s characters can provoke arguments about consent, representation and whether satire’s targets are always clear. But the controversy is part of the record of work that asks audiences to look closely at what people will say or do when confronted with a character they underestimate. His career also spans television, cinema, voice acting and drama, while his advocacy has brought attention to antisemitism, racism and online hate. Taken together, these achievements make his British connection more than birthplace or accent. He helped carry a particular tradition of character-led British satire into global popular culture, and kept its capacity to unsettle audiences in view.

Sources

Sacha Baron Cohen — Wikipedia revision 1379371489

Adapted in part from Sacha Baron Cohen by Wikipedia contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0. Text has been edited and combined with the existing article; this adapted text is shared under the same licence. Contributor history.