The team behind last year’s Borat 2 have been discussing just how daunting and difficult a project it was to get made.
Borat: Subsequent Moviefilm really felt like it came out of nowhere, just in time to pointedly lampoon a US administration at a crucial point in American history. Some of the skits in Borat 2 made major headlines too, appearing in at least one case to damage the credibility of a key member of the former President’s staff.
Now, the creators of Borat 2 have been chatting about the immense amount of pressure they felt, not only to keep the project secret, but also to outdo the original.
Monica Levinson, one of the producers of the film, via Movieweb, talked about the difficulties behind making a film where secrecy is paramount, saying “it’s super stressful. I produced Borat and Bruno you know, way back when, so I had practice in filming in secret. When your friends ask you what you’re doing, you have to make up a story or just say 'oh, just this little thing,’ and you kind of brush over it and you don’t talk about it. I don’t think I said the word 'Borat' until gosh, way after the trailer was out because it was just, it scares me”.
“I mean we are so trained not to say the character’s name and we don’t make mistakes. If you say the character’s name in practice in any way, shape or form, or in any pages that we receive or any outlines it’s more likely that you will slip up at some point. And the reality is that if we don’t film in secret, the movie is not going to be successful or get made successfully because then if people know what’s happening, then it’s nearly impossible to make it”.
Even the director of the film was hesitant to make it. Jason Woliner, at the end of last year, spoke about his trepidation regarding trying to top the original.
‘I basically said [to the production team] that Borat is the funniest movie ever made and that it’s almost certainly a mistake to do a sequel… Because of the nature of the movie, Borat is one of the most popular comedy characters of the last century so you have to find people who don’t know who he is. Sacha of course was completely aware of all of it and agreed with everything I said. If I had to guess, I think he respected that I came in with eyes open that I knew what a daunting task it was. A couple of days later, I was invited to the writer’s room for a week to see if I got along with Sacha and his writing team. It was the entire group of writers from the first movie and a few new ones. Two days in, I was offered the job and I never left”.
Borat 2 certainly had some moments, and if we don’t see the moustachioed reporter from Kazakhstan again, the film marked a successful farewell to the character, even if it may have been incredibly stressful to make. The movie is on Amazon Prime Video now.
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