OLD WORLD CHARM: KEN DAVITIAN MAKES LAUGHTER FOR MAKE BENEFIT GRATEFUL MOVIEGOERS OF AMERICA
By Robert Abele
New Times Broward-Palm Beach (Florida)
February 8, 2007 Thursday
As we’ve seen from British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen’s guerrilla-style
comedy hit Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit
Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan one actor’s deadpan dedication to
heavily accented cultural naivete in the face of unsuspecting victims
can do wonders. Actor Ken Davitian who played Borat’s bearded and
oversized film producer, confidante and combatant Azamat Bagatov,
knows this well. "I didn’t break character," says Davitian, 53 of
his audition for Borat. The breakdown called for a "frumpy eastern
European" man who didn’t understand English. But instead of showing
up as his needy American bit-player self and then performing the
role for a casting camera, Davitian arrived a bewildered foreigner
sporting baggy threads, a gruff demeanor, and a parlance inspired by
his Armenian relatives. Outside the audition, among fellow actors he
recognized from the ethnic-part circuit, all dressed as themselves,
he kept up the act. "One of the guys came up and said, ‘You really
want this part. ‘"
Inside Davitian didn’t even hand over a real resume. "I had a white
eight-by-ten that was folded in my jacket pocket," he says. "I took
it out straightened the creases, and gave it to them, and you could
see in their eyes, ‘How did this guy get in?’ From what I understand,
they thought, ‘This is so sad. Let’s just go through with it a little
bit and ask him to leave. ‘"
But Davitian made Cohen laugh and afterward, the L.A. native brought
out his regular voice and actual resume – a 15-year Hollywood grinder’s
menu of one-line cabdrivers and shop owners named Igor and Ramon an
ER here and a Boston Legal there, a Vin Diesel movie and something
called Frogtown II. (He got his SAG card for Albert Brooks’ Real
Life but was cut out of the film.) A Curb Your Enthusiasm audition
years ago didn’t pan out, but Borat director Larry Charles, a Curb
executive producer, had a cosmic take on it for Davitian: "He told me,
‘If you had gotten it, when you walked into this room, we would have
known you were an actor. ‘"
Of course in a comedy that upends our notions of role-playing,
Davitian comes across as more than a mere actor or sidekick. With his
determined waddle, non-English dialogue (he responded in Armenian to
Cohen’s Hebrew) and bearish, floppy-suited countenance, his Azamat
is arguably the movie’s true center of Old World verisimilitude. We
know Cohen’s a fake as he spotlights bigoted America, but unless
you’re a regular at L.A.’s the Dip – the delicious sandwich joint
Davitian owns and has used to pay the bills – why wouldn’t you think
that roly-poly tagalong was the genuine article?
Davitian a good-natured, gregarious sort in person, is certainly one
kind of reality: the struggling performer who juggled his dream with
the demands of raising a family (he and wife of 30 years Ellen, have
two grown sons) until the breakthrough role came. When asked about his
reaction to the Borat juggernaut-controversy promotional appearances,
awards season parties – he offers a Borscht Belt-timed response that’s
also achingly personal. "I have been preparing for this for 53 years,"
he says. "I’m really thrilled. I’ve gotten offers. For the first time
I actually passed on a project, and I’ve never passed. I’ve been the
guy who would be shooting a commercial in Fresno, drive to L.A. to
shoot something there, and then go back to Fresno, and the amount of
money made would be nothing. But that’s your job. And I want to work."
OK but most actors outside the world of porn aren’t asked to flout
public decency laws, wrestle nude, and park their nuts on a co-star’s
chin. Already a cinema classic – the homo-unerotic extreme version
of a Laurel & Hardy bit – Cohen and Davitian’s grapplefest inspired
a memorable Golden Globes acceptance speech from Cohen who thanked
Davitian for providing him a "rancid bubble" of trapped air with
which to stay alive.
But how did Davitian feel having to stare down genitalia himself?
"Thank you, thank you, thank you," he says, grateful to have his side
heard. Of his costar, he notes, "One, he had a very good mohel. And
two, that big black [censor] bar was a bit of an exaggeration."