MTV Movie & TV Awards To Recognize Sacha Baron Cohen With Comedic Genius Award

Sacha Baron Cohen is getting the Comedic Genius Award at this year’s MTV Movie & TV Awards. May 16th will be the big day and this has been a stretch to remember for the Borat actor. He was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for Trial of the Chicago 7. Late last year saw the return of his most popular character with Borat: Subsequent Moviefilm. The sort of wild comedy in that series of films and his other projects has led to this MTV honor. Being called a Comedic Genius is high praise. But, fans of Borat would believe that Cohen has earned the right pretty easily. The network describes the designation as one that, “honors an actor who has made incomparable contributions to the world of comedy, providing a major influence through their work and transforming the genre at large.”

He will be just the fourth comedian to receive this honor following Melissa McCarthy in 2016, Kevin Hart in 2015, and Will Ferrell’s turn in 2013. Earlier this awards season, Cohen made sure to credit Isla Fisher for helping him achieve all of this success in a conversation with CBS News.

“It’s impossible to make a movie like this without having an incredibly supporting spouse,” Baron Cohen said at the time. “You know, I went and made two movies in the last 12 months: [The Trial of the] Chicago Seven and Borat 2. And these aren’t normal shoot days; you’re calling up sometimes at the end of the day and just saying, ‘I was lucky to make it out in one piece today,’ so you need a very, very understanding wife. And I’m very lucky to have it.”

The comedian also spoke to Good Morning America about a rather hairy moment during Borat 2, “This wasn’t a prank movie, this was my form of peaceful protest. So, this was the first movie I was encouraged to wear a bulletproof vest during a couple of scenes. One of them was at a gun rally at Washington State, where I was singing a song called the Wuhan Flu. Yes, a group of armed members of the crowd stormed the stage, overpowered the security and one of them actually reached for his pistol. I was extremely luck that I had an outstanding bodyguard who grabbed the guy’s arm and whispered the words, ‘It’s not worth it buddy.’”

What do you think of the honor? Would you pick someone else? Let us know in the comments!