Borat Subsequent Moviefilm was secretly filmed across the United States, with Borat's pranks stretching all the way from Marietta, Georgia to Olympia, Washington. Borat 2 follows Borat Sagdiyev (Sacha Baron Cohen) and his teenage daughter Tutar (Maria Bakalova) as they try to gain the favor of the United States through a Trump administration insider. Along the way, Borat and Tutar grow closer as they explore large parts of the country and interact with unwitting participants in their wild schemes.
A sequel to Cohen's 2006 satire Borat has been rumored for years, but production on Borat 2 was a tightly kept secret. Rumors that a sequel was coming first appeared when Sacha Baron Cohen was spotted filming at a March For Our Rights rally in Olympia while in disguise as a country singer. Although Cohen was recognized when a video was widely circulated after his appearance, the prank was rumored to be for his Showtime series Who is America? instead of a sequel to Borat.
Borat Subsequent Moviefilm was filmed in multiple locations across the United States, and the lengths that the production team took to keep production a secret are impressive. From a brief but joyful appearance at the Texas State Fair to crashing Mike Pence's speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference, Borat Subsequent Moviefilm is a surprisingly insightful snapshot of the modern American experience.
Bill's Country Farm & Feed: Enumclaw, Washington
After Borat discovers that his teenage daughter, Tutar, has secretly stowed away on his ship to the United States, he reluctantly decides to let her join him on his journey. Their first stop is to get Tutar a cage, and Borat knows just the place: Bill's Country Farm & Feed, a farm supply store in Enumclaw, Washington. Borat ropes the unwitting salesman into helping select a cage for Tutar, and asks him how many girls you can keep in the cage on average. Satisfied with the cage he has chosen, they all go back into the store so Borat can inspect the propane tanks, where the scene becomes even more damning: Borat asks "how many gypsies can I finish with one canister?" and the salesman responds, "however many you got."
PMS Center: Newnan, Georgia
Borat frequently returns to the PMS Center in Borat 2 to correspond with the President of Kazakhstan via faxes. Store owner Alan Smith, who was told that he was filming a Russian training video, helpfully assisted Borat with writing and sending his progress updates. The faxes frequently included communication about Borat's plan to sell his daughter to various members of the Trump administration, as well as graphic details about his torture and execution if his plan failed. In an interview with Showbiz 411, Smith confirmed that the scenes were shot in a single day, and he was paid to send and receive faxes to a real Russian number.
Michelle's Formal Wear: Adel, Georgia
As part of Borat's quest to deliver Tutar to Mike Pence, he gives her a makeover while they're traveling through Georgia. One of their stops is at a formalwear boutique in Adel, where the store owner tries to help Tutar find a gown. After getting past Borat's disbelief that a woman can own a business and his inappropriate questions about the dresses, they settle on Tutar's yellow chiffon gown, seen later in Borat 2 at a debutante ball.
Texas State Fair: Dallas, Texas
Tutar and Borat go the Texas State Fair in disguise after his daughter, Tutar's, makeover, so that they can study how American girls behave while in public. Borat is shocked to see that fathers and daughters are holding hands instead of leading their daughters on a leash, but Tutar eventually convinces him to hold hands as well - although he covers his with a plastic bag - so no one will notice that they are different.
Spartan Bakery: Spartanburg, South Carolina
In Borat 2, Borat and Tutar seem to leave the State Fair and cross the street to a bakery - but in real life, the bakery scene was shot in South Carolina. Borat decides to get a cake "of prodigious size" to go with Tutar as part of his gift for Mike Pence, and has the woman write "Jews will not replace on" on the cake in blue icing. Spartan Bakery, much like the PMS Center, signed a paid contract in exchange for appearing in the movie, although it's likely that they didn't know the actual content of the film or the scene they were shooting.
Carolina Pregnancy Center: Spartanburg, South Carolina
After the bakery, Tutar accidentally swallows the plastic baby from the top of her cupcake. Borat quickly decides that his daughter needs medical treatment to get the baby out, and they end up at the Carolina Pregnancy Center, a crisis pregnancy center also located in Spartanburg. Borat and his daughter speak with Jonathan Bright, the pastor that runs the pro-life clinic, and lead him to believe that Tutar is pregnant with Borat's child and seeking an abortion.
The Hay House: Macon, Georgia
One of the standout scenes in Borat 2 follows Borat and Tutar as they attend a debutante ball in Georgia, disguised as Professor Phillip Drummond III and Sandra Jessica Parker Drummond. The pair horrify the attendees by performing a traditional fertility dance, and Tutar displays her blood-soaked underwear. Hay House staff members claim that the shoot was booked under false pretenses, and that Borat producers said they were making a coming-of-age film about cotillion balls in the United States (via 13WMAZ).
Conservative Political Action Conference: Oxon Hill, Maryland
Almost immediately after the cotillion, Borat and Tutar decide to enact their plan to bribe Mike Pence by attending CPAC in disguise. They arrive at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center in Maryland, where the conference is being held, and Borat tries to blend in by dressing as a Klansman. Once inside, he changes into an elaborate Donald Trump costume in the bathroom and he charges into the conference with Tutar over his shoulder, interrupting Mike Pence's speech.
Although the prank was reported on at the time, Sacha Baron Cohen was so unrecognizable in his prosthetics that no one made the connection with the comedian. In an interview with the New York Times, Cohen confirmed that he spent five hours in makeup getting the Trump prosthetics applied, and an additional five hours hiding in the bathroom waiting for the right moment.
Hampton Inn: Eugene, Oregon
When Borat's plan to give Tutar to Pence fails, they decide instead to try and bribe Rudy Giuliani. Tutar is scheduled to get plastic surgery with Dallas plastic surgeon Dr. Charles Wallace, but changes her mind after spending an afternoon with her babysitter. She skips the plastic surgery and goes to a meeting of the Hillsborough Republican Women's Club instead, where she learns that women can drive cars, men can tell lies, and her vagina doesn't have teeth. It's not entirely clear where the scene is supposed to take place: the plastic surgeon's office is in Texas, but the only existing Hillsborough Republican Women's Club is in Florida. However, the filming location used in the scene for both interior and exterior shots is the Hampton Inn located in Eugene, Oregon.
Temple Kol Emeth: Marietta, Georgia
Borat Subsequent Moviefilm travelled back to Georgia for Borat's lowest point in the film, when Tutar tells him that the Holocaust didn't happen and they become estranged. He decides to attempt suicide by going into a synagogue wearing an offensive, anti-Semitic disguise. Instead, he meets Holocaust survivor Judith Dim Evans, who approaches his Holocaust denial with kindness and empathy in one of the movie's more touching scenes. Evans died earlier this year, and her estate tried to sue the Borat producers for including her interview in the film. The Borat team has maintained that Evans was notified that Cohen was an actor, made aware of the purpose of the interview, and the Evans estate lawsuit has been dismissed.
AA Loan & Gun Shop: Lakewood, Washington
While wandering around Lakewood, Borat runs into Jim Russell outside of a gun shop. Jim explains that the streets are empty because everyone is staying home due to the pandemic, and ends up inviting Borat to quarantine at his home with him and his roommate Jerry Holleman - both of whom are QAnon conspiracy theorists. In the same interview with the New York Times where Cohen explained how he snuck into CPAC, he describes the five days spent in character while in quarantine as the hardest part of shooting the movie.
March For Our Rights 3: Olympia, Washington
Sacha Baron Cohen's presence at the March For Our Rights 3 rally in Olympia was one of the most widely publicized pranks leading up to the release of Borat 2. In disguise as a country singer, Cohen infiltrated the rally and sang an offensive call-and-response song with the crowd. In preparation for the stunt, the Borat team disguised their involvement by using a PAC called Back To Work USA, which promised the event organizers that they would cover some of the costs and provide music. The roughly 500 people in attendance at the rally turned on Cohen when they realized who he was. In a clip that was cut from the film, Cohen reveals that he was wearing a bulletproof vest under his disguise, but still had to escape with his security detail when he was discovered.
The Mark Hotel: New York City, New York
The infamous Borat scene with Rudy Giuliani occurs at the end of Borat 2, when Tutar arranges the interview as a last-ditch attempt to gain the favor of the Trump administration and save her father from execution. Tutar invites Giuliani to a hotel suite, where she has already set up cameras, and conducts an interview about the Trump administration's response to the coronavirus pandemic. She and Giuliani go to the bedroom, where she helps him remove his mic, and the scene ends with Sacha Baron Cohen barging in dressed as Borat to rescue her before anything happens. The scene was filmed in a suite at the upscale Mark Hotel in Manhattan's Upper East Side.
The scenes in Borat 2 were kept under wraps until the movie was released, despite being filmed across the country. Almost none of the participants were aware that they were participating in a Borat sequel, and in most cases were outright lied to about what the footage was going to be used for. The original Borat was praised for reflecting uncomfortable truths about American culture, and the sequel had the ambitious job of examining the American experience from coast-to-coast in Borat Subsequent Moviefilm.