Sacha Baron Cohen Reveals How Rudy Giuliani Borat Scene Almost Went Wrong

But prank-master Baron Cohen's plan was almost rumbled by a rookie error.

Explaining the gaffe on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, he said: "During that scene we had built a hideaway in the wardrobe which was about 6ft 5in and 3ft wide.

"I was in there for the entire scene and my only means of communication, the idea was that I would jump out at the necessary point, and I would communicate, I would know what he was doing via text messages with the director - because I had no eyes on anything.

"Rudy thought he was alone with her. He brought a cop with him, an ex-policeman, and the policeman does a sweep of the entire hotel suite. And I'm obviously running to get in there and jump in the hideaway. You know, pull this thing shut and I've got a little internal lock, and it's pitch black in there."

He continued: "[The ex-policeman] does a sweep and leaves the room and the security guard sits outside the room ensuring that no one could come in and out - which is actually even more scary when you think about it for her [Bakalova].

"But the only thing was, so we'd built this hideaway, we're all fully prepared, I get in the hideaway, his security guard does the sweep, looks in the wardrobe, there's nothing untoward - the interview starts and I switch on the phone and there's only three percent battery.

"I thought, 'Hold on, we've got Rudy Giuliani, we've got the President's lawyer, we've got this scene, this is the climax of the movie, and no one thought it might be worth charging the phone?!'"

Fortunately, he managed to 'keep it on airplane mode and occasionally check in'; the rest is now history.

Giuliani has denounced the scene as a 'complete fabrication', claiming he was doing nothing more than tucking in his shirt in the hotel room.

Baron Cohen reckons people should see for themselves before deciding who to believe.

He said: "Well he said that he did nothing inappropriate. My feeling is, if he sees that as appropriate then heaven knows what he's intended to do with other women in hotel rooms with a glass of whiskey in his hand.

"I mean, I don't want to ruin the movie for anyone so I would just say, see it and make your own mind up."