Maria Bakalova drank from a toilet and tried to eat a fish from an aquarium in her 'Borat 2' audition

• In an interview with IndieWire, Maria Bakalova said she drank from a toilet and tried to eat a fish from an aquarium in her audition for "Borat 2."
• Bakalova was scouted after the casting director Nancy Bishop spotted her in a movie called "The Father" at the 2019 Karlovy Vary International Film Festival in the Czech Republic.
• Bakalova landed the role of Tutar, Borat's daughter, a role that Sacha Baron Cohen has said required an "incredible improviser" with the ability to stay in character "for many, many hours."
• During this audition, Bakalova also ad-libbed one of Tutar's lines that made it into the final movie: "Why is the sky so low?"

Maria Bakalova said she did a lot of "crazy things" during her "Borat 2" audition, including drinking from a toilet and trying to eat a fish from an aquarium.

In an interview with IndieWire, Bakalova recounted how she landed the part of Tutar, Borat's daughter in Sacha Baron Cohen's "Borat" sequel, officially titled "Borat Subsequent Moviefilm."

Bakalova was scouted for an audition by the casting director Nancy Bishop, who saw Bakalova in a small role in "The Father" at the 2019 Karlovy Vary International Film Festival in the Czech Republic. Bakalova then completed a remote audition before doing a follow-up in London, which she said wasn't your average audition. "We did all these crazy things," Bakalova said. "I drank from the toilet, I tried to eat a fish from the aquarium."

Bakalova clearly bought into the "Borat" style of going to extreme lengths for comedy, matching Baron Cohen in not being afraid to do anything.

It was during this audition when Bakalova herself came up with one of Tutar's most iconic lines in the movie, when the character asks "Why is the sky so low?" as she enters a building with a roof for the first time.

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"It was our idea that she had never been inside someplace and was surprised by this thing up there," Bakalova said.

Bishop said that while the Borat team liked Bakalova, it wasn't "100% sure that she would work." "They wanted to exhaust all possible options," Bishop said. "Only Sacha could really determine that Maria was right for the role by working with her and seeing if and how she could play off him."

Baron Cohen told Stephen Colbert that he was looking for "an incredible improviser" with the ability to "stay in character for many, many hours."

Eventually, of course, Bakalova landed the gig, though she didn't realize the size of the project until later. Bakalova said she was "impressed," "inspired," and "a little bit scared" at the thought of starring in such a huge movie.

Her casting and her performance paid off though, with her role in the movie hailed as one of the best things about the sequel. Baron Cohen himself has said it'd be a "travesty" if she doesn't get an Oscar nomination for her performance.

• Read more:
• Sacha Baron Cohen says it would be a 'travesty' if 'Borat 2' star Maria Bakalova isn't nominated for an Oscar
• The 'Borat 2' composer thinks playing the 'Wuhan Flu' song at the Oscars would be 'one of the best things to ever happen'
• How Sacha Baron Cohen hijacked the political conversation ahead of the US presidential election with 'Borat 2'