Sacha Baron Cohen has admitted he feared for his life while making his filmed-in-secret Borat sequel, saying he was "fortunate to make it out in one piece" after crashing a gun-rights rally in Washington.
The 48-year-old comedian, who released his Golden Globe winning Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan in 2006, said he wore a bulletproof vest during filming of his upcoming movie Borat Subsequent Moviefilm.
Writing in Time magazine, Cohen said: "While filming my latest Borat film, I showed up as a right-wing singer at a gun-rights rally in Washington State. When organisers finally stormed the stage, I rushed to a nearby get-away vehicle."
"Under my overalls, I was wearing a bulletproof vest, but it felt inadequate with some people outside toting semiautomatic weapons.
"When someone ripped open the door to drag me out, I used my entire body weight to pull the door back shut until our vehicle manoeuvred free."
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Baron Cohen's reckons his comedy can be more powerful than it appears on the surface.
"A lot of my comedy is uncomfortably pubescent. But when it works, satire can humble the powerful and expose the ills of society.
"As Abbie Hoffman, who helped lead the 1968 protests against the Vietnam War during the Democratic convention in Chicago, liked to say, 'Sacred cows make the tastiest hamburger.' By getting people to reveal what they really believe, I have at times exposed the ignorance, bigotry and conspiratorial delusions that often lurk just below the surface of our modern lives."
Borat Subsequent Moviefilm will launch around the world in 240 countries on Amazon Prime on October 23.
