Entertainment
Borat 2 stunt double on ‘terrifying’ Secret Service encounter, ‘mad genius’ Sacha Baron Cohen, and Maria Bakalova’s ‘stunning’ deleted scene
As Maria Bakalova’s stunt double in Borat Subsequent Moviefilm, Kate Cochran has seen and done it all.
From being ‘taken down’ by the Secret Service in a terrifying encounter to working with ‘mad genius’ Sacha Baron Cohen, taking on the action scenes in the unique sequel isn’t something she’ll forget quickly.
Playing on real-life situations, and involving high-profile politicians like former Vice President Mike Pence, Sacha and his team took their life in their hands at times, with the actor famously having to wear a bulletproof vest.
But they didn’t go in unprepared as they met with attorneys every day, mapping out the intricate stunts down to the second.
As part of our series, Seeing Double, which looks into the extraordinary lives of some of film and TV’s most fearless performers – stunt doubles – we talk to Kate Cochran, who is best known for doubling Oscar-nominee Maria as Tutar.
Kate opened up to Metro.co.uk about exactly what went down.
Kate’s stunt double CV
- Kate started out in stunts by teaching herself gymnastics, managing to train in an ‘old circus guy’s backyard’, where he had equipment like trapezes and trampolines.
- Before Borat, she mostly worked on TV shows, including Westworld, American Horror Story, Modern Family, and Lucifer.
- She’s now been in stunts for more than five years, with John Krasinksi’s A Quiet Place 2 being one of her upcoming releases.
What was the scariest stunt on the set of Borat Subsequent Moviefilm?
‘Probably the craziest was the scene with Mike Pence when [Borat] has his daughter over his shoulder – that was me,’ Kate explained. ‘It was terrifying to be taken down by the presidential Secret Service.
‘I’ve had to watch the film a couple of times because my mum wanted to see it and friends and family, and every time that scene pops up, I get cold feet. I get sweaty from watching it.’
‘Typically when I’m at work, it’s a closed set,’ she continued. ‘Every single person who’s there is part of the action, so you don’t have any stragglers who could get in the way. On this, it’s just Sacha and me and there’s hidden cameras about.
‘There are so many unknown elements as it’s not a closed set, and people actually got really aggressive. They see what we’re doing and think that we’re infringing on their rights and I just remember […] Sacha threw me over his shoulder and almost immediately people just started booing, and I think someone hit him a couple of times.
‘Of course all the cameras that we had, they couldn’t do anything, because they were just there to take footage, unless things got really out of hand and then they’d step in. But it was mostly just really angry yelling! The Secret Service got to us in probably 25 seconds and they didn’t tackle us to the ground, but they very aggressively separated us and escorted us out while thousands of people were yelling at us.’
Was there any danger of getting in serious trouble?
‘We had a whole panel of attorneys that we spoke with – it was an every day morning meeting,’ Kate explained.
‘They analysed every single detail, like, “Just make sure your body language – don’t even turn towards Pence, and here are some things that you’re allowed to say and do, just as long as you stick with these things, you’re not breaking the law. You’re going to make a lot of people very angry, but there’s nothing illegal here.”
‘So we got kicked off the premises and our badges were taken away, and then also banned from CPAC [the convention centre] for life. So I won’t be allowed to go there again!
‘Actually the weirdest thing – and I don’t know if this is serious or not – I ended up Googling my name after and it said that I was on a government watch list under the category of political extremist.’
‘People become very defensive,’ she explained. ‘We all have equal freedom of speech but when you go to a place where they have one ideology and you’re preaching another, sometimes they can get real aggro.
‘It was scary – I remember there’s footage where they’re in one of the Sprinter vans after the scene where [Sacha is] dressed in the cowboy suit and he stands up and he sings the Wuhan Flu song, that was probably the most aggressive.
‘They shuffled him out of there – his bodyguards are extremely good […] They tread the line between, “We’ve got to get the footage but now we’ve really got to get you out of here.”‘
What was the preparation like for stunts like?
‘We definitely rehearsed, especially for the Mike Pence scene, because we had to make sure that every single inch of where we’re going was pre-calculated because you try to eliminate factors as you can,’ Kate recalled.
She added that they had a specialist come in, who Kate said was able to ‘draw the blue print [of the convention centre] – “Here’s the stage, here’s where you want to get a seat, and here’s basically where the Secret Service are going to be posted up.”
‘Of course they had Washington DC Police and the convention security, but the big one was the Secret Service,’ she continued. ‘I just remember we were in this little room, and we set up everything we could – all of the chairs, how they would be in the convention centre and we determined where I would sit, where Sacha would sit.
‘From there we rehearsed as best we could, the timings of when we would go, and we set everyone’s watches to that same one point and we rehearsed it – poor guy, he’s such a trooper! He had to carry me over his shoulder so many times!
‘We rehearsed it and rehearsed it and rehearsed it in the room, just me constantly over his shoulder and him working on different lines of delivery that he wanted to try out.’
What was it like working with Sacha?
‘I was actually really amazed at working with Sacha – he’s a mad genius!’ she laughed. ‘The content that he comes up with is just outstanding.
‘They say you’re crazy until your idea works and then you’re brilliant. He’s like a happy medium between all of those.
‘I remember we were just trying to pick the wardrobe for the Mike Pence scene and the amount of detail that he specifically would scrutinise over, over the colours and where the tears were on the dress.
‘He’s very involved, he’s very into every single scene, from the cameras, to the script, to the people, to everything.’
Was anything cut from the film?
‘There’s actually a really great scene – I’m not exactly sure why it conflicted with the overall storyline, but we did shoot this scene where [Maria] shaved her head,’ Kate explained.
‘She had all these cameras on her, she’s like laughing, crying, and she just has so much emotion that bubbles up – she does a really stunning job.
‘I was really looking forward to that but I think, because they did have to change the storyline – the story had to change because of Covid.’
Kate described the changes that resulted from coronavirus as ‘pretty drastic’, adding: ‘I think probably, even just a viewer who wasn’t involved in the film, you can sense a change right when Covid hits. In the film it kind of seems like the story took a hard left, and it did.’
‘[There were] little things along the way that lead me to believe that the story was going in one direction and they had to make big modifications in order to finish it off,’ she explained.
How does it feel seeing the film nominated at the Oscars?
Since its release, the film has seen widespread acclaim, including two Oscar nominations – one for Sacha for best adapted screenplay, and one for Maria for best supporting actress.
‘On a personal level, I am so happy for them,’ Kate said. ‘Oh my gosh! Because it is a comedy, of course, but I think that Sacha, in such a brilliant way, calls out a lot of stuff that’s wrong.
‘I think that is the brilliance of the film. So for it to receive so much acclaim makes me feel really good about having been a part of it.
‘And then Maria, I think did an awesome job. And she’s so funny and so sweet and I’m so excited to see where her career goes from here. Because I know one thing they’ve been talking about a lot is Eastern European people, women, men, whoever, they don’t really get a lot of recognition in Western content.
‘Maybe she’s the start of a new niche – and then if she wants to bring me along as her double, that would be even cooler!’
Want more from Seeing Double?
Seeing Double returns every Wednesday, featuring film and TV’s most fearless stunt doubles.
In the meantime, check out the series so far.
