Borat, Exposed! No, Not in That Way.

When you watch Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (dang, and here I thought I was all done with having to type that title), it looks and feels unscripted. In fact, when the film screened at Toronto, director Larry Charles said during an impromptu Q&A that it was all unscripted. Well, shocking but true -- it's not. In fact, Borat's antics (and success) owe much to three other Brit writers (now imported to LA) who spent hours debating crucial decisions like whether the Borat should carry his feces to the dinner table in a clear or opaque bag.

Written By, the magazine of the WGA West, has a great interview up with comedy scribes Peter Baynham, Dan Mazer, and Anthony "Ant" Hines, who, along with Sacha Baron Cohen, form the core of the Borat writing team. The writers agreed to let Written By "out" them as having scripted the seemingly unscripted moments in the film, and what they have to say about the process of creating Borat is fascinating -- especially the degree to which they map out every possible reaction to each bit, with different plans depending on how it goes.

There are juicy tidbits in there about what was really supposed to happen when the Black prostitute showed up at the dinner party (she and Borat were supposed to have loud sex in the bathroom and then get thrown out, but the white folks jumped the gun by freaking out over a Black woman coming in their house and kicked them out early) and who saved the rodeo tapes from a mob of pissed-off rednecks by putting them down his underwear.

Check out the entire article for more hilarious insights into the brilliance of Team Borat.

[via Movie City Indie ]