Maria Bakalova Says She 'Always Felt Safe' Making “Borat 2” with 'Mentor' Sacha Baron Cohen (Exclusive)

Maria Bakalova earned an Oscar nomination for her breakout role in the 'Borat' sequel, and now she stars in 'The Apprentice'

<p>Randy Shropshire/Getty</p> Sacha Baron Cohen and Maria Bakalova on March 25, 2022

Randy Shropshire/Getty

Sacha Baron Cohen and Maria Bakalova on March 25, 2022

Maria Bakalova found an impactful collaborator in Sacha Baron Cohen when she first came to the U.S. to film 2020's Borat Subsequent Moviefilm.

During a conversation held at the Dotdash Meredith offices in New York City Oct. 10, the Bulgarian actress, 28, told PEOPLE's Senior Movies News Editor Nigel Smith that Cohen, 52, was a "mentor" to her when she worked on the wild Borat sequel. Bakalova portrayed the satirical Kazakh journalist Borat Sagdiyev's daughter Tutar.

"I ended up just playing in such a beautiful childish-like way with Sacha. When you have a great partner, it only makes you better. It all depends on partnership," she says.

"From the beginning, I knew that I would love to be able to work with him, to collaborate with him, because he's always immediately responding to everything that we do or you know that you can follow him."

Bakalova says she was not familiar with Cohen's comedy work beforehand but knew him from his role in 2012's Les Misérables and 2019's Netflix series The Spy before she flew to the U.S. to take on the project.

"I feel like I'm emotionally really connected to him because I was able to trust him. I always felt safe and I always felt looked after, taken care of," she says of Cohen, whose films often feature him and other actors in character and interacting with real people unscripted.

Related: Inside Maria Bakalova's Ivana Trump Transformation for The Apprentice: Accents, Long Nails, Big Shoulder Pads (Exclusive)

<p>Alamy</p> Sacha Baron Cohen and Maria Bakalova in 2020's Borat Subsequent Moviefilm

Alamy

Sacha Baron Cohen and Maria Bakalova in 2020's Borat Subsequent Moviefilm

"I knew that if something goes in a different direction, he's going to be there and he's going to save me. He's so experienced in this and he'd been holding my hand every step on the way," she said. "It's been just really satisfying. Like a mentor, which is something very important, we all have them in our lives."

Borat Subsequent Moviefilm captured Borat's attempts to "sell" his daughter Tutar to then-U.S. Vice President Mike Pence and Rudy Giuliani. The film debuted in October 2020, just weeks before the presidential election; Bakalova was nominated for an Academy Award for her supporting performance in the movie, though Minari's Youn Yuh-jung took home the trophy in March 2021.

"When you're a part of this thing and when you are able to share space with people, like in my year was Glenn Close and Olivia Colman and Amanda Seyfried...," Bakalova recalled of that year's Oscar nominees. "These are some of my heroes."

Coincidentally, Bakalova finds herself in another politically charged movie involving Donald Trump releasing just weeks before a presidential election: The Apprentice, in which she costars as Trump's late first wife Ivana, opposite Sebastian Stan as a young Trump.

Related: Sebastian Stan Says Mimicking Donald Trump's Mouth Movement for The Apprentice Was 'Tricky' (Exclusive)

<p>Pief Weyman</p> Maria Bakalova and Sebastian Stan in "The Apprentice"

Pief Weyman

Maria Bakalova and Sebastian Stan in "The Apprentice"

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"We were sending each other a lot of documentaries and a lot of articles. We've been on the phone, he's been using his accent, I've been trying to use my own accent," Bakalova says of working with Stan, 42, and director Ali Abbasi.

"It's been interesting. Ali was there with us and he was bringing ideas, pitching ideas, and we just tried different things. When you know that you can trust somebody, you allow yourself to try more."

The Apprentice is in theaters now.

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