He's best known for his creation and portrayal of the fictional satirical characters Ali G, Borat Sagdiyev, Brüno Gehard, and Admiral General Haffaz Aladeen.

In 2019, he portrayed Eli Cohen in the limited series The Spy for OCS and Netflix, for which he received a nomination for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Miniseries or Television Film.

He has also appeared in dramatic films including Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007), Hugo (2011), Les Misérables (2012), and The Trial of the Chicago 7 (2020).

[7] Sacha Noam Baron Cohen[8] was born into an English family of Ashkenazi Jewish descent[9] in the Hammersmith area of London on 13 October 1971.

[11][12] His father, editor-turned-clothing store owner Gerald "Jerry" Baron Cohen (1932–2016), was born into a Belarusian Ashkenazi Jewish family in London and grew up in the Welsh town of Pontypridd.

[29][30] Known for portraying a wide range of comic characters using different accents and guises, Sellers was referred to by Baron Cohen as "the most seminal force in shaping [his] early ideas on comedy".

[28] By the early 1990s, he was hosting a weekly programme on Windsor cable television's local broadcasts with Carol Kirkwood, who later became a BBC weather forecaster.

In 1996, Baron Cohen began presenting the youth chat programme F2F for Granada Talk TV and had a small role in an advertisement for McCain Microchips, as a chef in a commercial entitled "Ping Pong".

Baron Cohen is a supporter of the UK charity telethon Comic Relief, which is broadcast on the BBC, and as Ali G interviewed David Beckham and wife Victoria in 2001.

According to Rolling Stone magazine, Baron Cohen would always enter the interview area dressed as Ali G, carrying equipment while acting like an inconspicuous crew member.

[45] The Kazakh journalist Borat Sagdiyev was first developed for short skits on F2F on Granada Television in the UK that Baron Cohen presented in 1996–1997, with the character at this time being known as Alexi Krickler.

[47] Borat's sense of humour derives from his mocking of society through outrageous sociocultural viewpoints, his deadpan violation of social taboos and use of vulgar language and behaviour.

[56] Another alter ego Sacha Baron Cohen performed as is "Brüno", a flamboyantly gay Austrian fashion show presenter who often lures his unwitting subjects into making provocative statements and engaging in embarrassing behaviour, as well as leading them to contradict themselves, often in the same interview.

[57] After an intense bidding war that included such Hollywood powerhouses as DreamWorks, Sony, and 20th Century Fox, Universal Pictures won and paid a reported $42.5 million for the film rights to a collection of interviews Baron Cohen performed as the character Brüno.

[65] Baron Cohen eventually appeared at the awards' red carpet with a pair of uniformed female bodyguards, holding an urn which he claimed was filled with the ashes of Kim Jong-il.

[66][67][68] Hours before the premiere, Showtime uploaded the "Kinderguardians" segment on their YouTube channel, in which Morad explains to Philip Van Cleave, the president of the Virginia Citizens Defense League, of the proposal of a new program where children ages 3 to 16 are armed with guns.

In the second episode, Morad teaches Jason Spencer, a Republican state representative from Georgia, how to detect and repel terrorists by taking pictures up a woman's burqa with a selfie stick, walking backwards while baring his buttocks, and yelling racial epithets.

In September 2010, representatives for Baron Cohen confirmed that he was set to play Freddie Mercury in the Bohemian Rhapsody biopic about the rock singer.

[95] Baron Cohen has also donated to support children and families in Somalia during a severe hunger crisis, and funded the building of a maternity hospital in Hodeidah, Yemen.

[98][99] In 2020, at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, Baron Cohen and Isla Fisher partnered with Marc Benioff to send a planeload of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) to National Health Service workers in the UK.

[106] In November 2023, Baron Cohen was among more than a dozen creators and celebrities who challenged TikTok executives on the subject of content moderation and the safety of Jewish users amidst the early stages of the Israel-Hamas War.

HBO spokesman Quentin Schaffer replied to the criticism and said, "Through his alter-egos, [Baron Cohen] delivers an obvious satire that exposes people's ignorance and prejudice in much the same way All in the Family did years ago.

[118] He was, however, defended by Dariga Nazarbayeva, a politician and the daughter of Kazakhstan's then-President Nursultan Nazarbayev, who stated, "We should not be afraid of humour and we shouldn't try to control everything...".

[119] The deputy foreign minister of Kazakhstan later invited Baron Cohen to visit the country, stating that he could learn that "women drive cars, wine is made of grapes, and Jews are free to go to synagogues".

[120] After the success of the Borat film, the Kazakh government, including the president, altered their stance on Baron Cohen's parody, tacitly recognising the valuable press coverage the controversy created for their country.

[121] At the 2006 MTV Movie Awards, Borat introduced Gnarls Barkley's performance of "Crazy",[122] where he made a comment about Jessica Simpson, saying that he liked her mouth and that he could see it clearly through her denim pants.

[123] At the 2006 UK premiere of Borat, he arrived in Leicester Square in a cart pulled by a mule and a number of "Kazakh women," announcing: "Good evening, gentleman and prostitutes.

[124] Two of the three University of South Carolina students who appear in Borat sued the filmmakers, alleging that they were duped into signing release forms while drunk, and that false promises were made that the footage was for a documentary that would never be screened in the US.

[130][131] On 30 April 2010, Palestinian Christian grocer Ayman Abu Aita, of the West Bank and former member of Fatah, filed a lawsuit against Baron Cohen, alleging that he had been defamed by false accusations that he was a terrorist in the movie Bruno.

Disguised under heavy make-up, Baron Cohen sang a song telling listeners to attack liberals, CNN, the World Health Organization, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Anthony Fauci, Bill Gates and "mask-wearers".