'It got too dangerous': Sacha Baron Cohen officially retires from playing Borat

British actor and comedian Sacha Baron Cohen has revealed that he's retiring from his controversial character of Borat Sagdiyev, as portraying it "got too dangerous".

According to People magazine, the 49-year-old actor said that he will not be continuing on with his character for another film in the Borat franchise.

Cohen said, "It got too dangerous, there were a couple of times I had to put on a bulletproof vest to go and shoot a scene, and you don't want to do that too many times in your life. I was pretty lucky to get out this time, so no, I'm not doing it again. I'm going to stay with the scripted stuff."

Elaborating on his decision to end the films, Baron Cohen admitted that he gets little to no sleep ahead of shooting scenes that put his life in harm's way, like when he attended a far-right rally in the sequel.

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He explained, "The night before something like that -- that rally -- you're trying to go through everything that can go wrong. In a normal scene like what we're doing, we're trying to make sure, 'How do I make sure my performance is real? Have I done my research? How do I make sure the accent's perfect?' In this one you're going, 'Okay, if a bunch of guys with guns come from that side of the stage, have I got a way to get out? What happens if someone shoots me? What if a bunch of people start shooting me?'"

Baron Cohen starred in 2006's Borat as the fictional Kazakhstani journalist who travels throughout the US to make a documentary. The film features real-life interactions with Americans. He reprised the character for the 2020 sequel, Borat Subsequent Moviefilm, which also features Maria Bakalova as his daughter Tutar.