Behind the Scenes: Borat's Ken Davitian

If you haven't seen Borat, I'm not talking to you.

Borat: Cultural Learnings of something 'er other was the funniest movie of 2006, and I'm going to predict now that no movie in 2007 tops it.

When I found out Azamat Bagatov, the "producer" of Borat (in the movie, not the actual film) was not real but rather an American actor, I was surprised. I assumed he was an actor but I also assumed he had an accent of some kind. Nope, he's Ken Davitian, an American actor who has appeared in many shows and movies.

During our 25-minute phone interview, Ken shared the secrets of Borat, his Golden Globes experience and much more. We started the interview with him leaving his house in L.A. and it ended with him sitting in the parking lot somewhere, ready to walk into an audition.

This is a man who has been an actor for 30 years, but a celebrity now for just a few months. That's a huge difference. He had a plethora of roles under his belt, but no fame. Now he is "inside the bubble" of Hollywood, not outside, as he explained in the interview. He is genuinely so humbled by the experience and so excited to see what is next in his career.

An interesting thing to take note of, he had been promoting Borat for months but had to remain in character. Only now can he do interviews as himself and can finally show people that he's a real actor.

Another note I will share is that after the interview, he had to call me back because he couldn't remember someone's name he had referred to. So he called me back with the name and then said to make sure I tell the Smashing Pumpkins he wants to be in another of their music videos. As you'll read in the interview, he played a very weird character in one of their videos a few years ago, and he was surprised to learn that the band was getting back together.

I know we have not seen the last of Ken Davitian and it will be interesting to see what his next role will be.

Read the interview at andPOP.