Borat - Production

Production

Except for Borat, Azamat, Luenell, and Pamela Anderson, none of the characters are portrayed by actors. Most scenes in the film were unscripted, although the end credits do credit a "Naked Fight Coordinator." In most cases the film's participants were given no warning on what they would be taking part in except for being asked to sign release forms agreeing not to take legal action against the film's producers. Filming was already underway in January 2005, when Baron Cohen caused a near riot in what would ultimately be the rodeo scene in the final cut of the film.

An interview with Baron Cohen by Rolling Stone indicated that more than 400 hours of footage had been shot for the film.

The "Kazakhstan" depicted in the film has little or no relationship with the actual country and the producers explicitly deny attempting to "convey the actual beliefs, practices or behaviour of anyone associated with Kazakhstan" in the "all persons fictitious" disclaimer. The scenes showing Borat's home village were filmed in the Gypsy village of Glod, Romania. The name of Borat's neighbor, Nursultan Tuyakbay, is a cross between the names of Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev and opposition politician Zharmakhan Tuyakbay.

No Kazakh language is heard in the film. Borat's neighbors in Kazakhstan were portrayed by Roma people, who were unaware of the film's subject. The Cyrillic alphabet used in the film is the Russian form, not the Kazakh one, although most of the words written in it (especially the geographical names) are either misspelled, or make no sense at all. The lettering on the aircraft in the beginning of the film is merely the result of Roman characters on a reversed image, while promotional materials spell "BORДT" with a Cyrillic letter for D substituted for the "A" in Faux Cyrillic style typically used to give a "Russian" appearance. Sacha Baron Cohen speaks Hebrew in the film, while Ken Davitian speaks Armenian. They also use several common phrases from Slavic languages: Borat's trademark expressions "jagshemash" (jak się masz) and "chenquieh" (dziękuję) echo the Polish (or other related languages) for "How are you?" and "thank you". While presenting his house, Borat says "tishe" to his house-cow; "tiše/тише" is Russian (similar words exist in other Slavic languages) for "quiet(er)" or "be quiet".

The film is produced by Baron Cohen's production company, Four By Two Productions. "Four By Two" is Cockney rhyming slang for "Jew".