HOT GALLERY: Snakkle Unmasks the Many Personalities of The Dictator’s Sacha Baron Cohen

As a kid in Hammersmith, West London, Sacha Baron Cohen was the shy, middle brother in a suburban Jewish family. He attended University of Cambridge as a history major but then spent most of his time at the Cambridge University Amateur Dramatic Club. After school, Cohen started hosting a weekly TV series on Windsor Cable until he was fired for a “lewd” Valentine’s Day broadcast.

In 1995, Cohen was hired to host the shows Pump TV and F2F, where he honed his improv and live chat persona that would soon evolve into his first breakout character.

In 1998, Cohen premiered his daft hip-hop host Ali G. The outrageous character was given his own chat show, Da Ali G Show, on Channel 4 in 2000. The series eventually aired on HBO and the character gained more U.S. attention when he appeared as the limousine driver in Madonna's 2000 video for "Music.” In 2002, Ali G got his own film with Ali G Indahouse.

In 2005, Cohen voiced Julien, the dance freak lemur with a weird accent that proclaims himself King of Madagascar in Dreamwork’s animated film about zoo animals that end up on the tiny island. Cohen reprised the role in all three Madagascar films.

In 2006, Cohen hit comedy film gold with the character of Borat, a Kazakhstan reporter who comes to the U.S. to learn lessons to bring back to his beleaguered country. Essentially a road movie, Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan takes the character coast to coast, meeting average people who weren’t in on the joke as he recorded their interactions with him. The film made $128 million just in the U.S., and Cohen was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. He retired the character in 2007.

Brüno, a character Cohen first debuted in 1998 based on his stint as a male model, got his own film in 2009. The flamboyantly gay Austrian model and fashion host character travels the globe ridiculing the industry via physical stunts or by interviewing unsuspecting celebs and interview subjects about controversial topics. Brüno was a more modest hit, earning $59 million in the U.S.

Cohen’s longtime girlfriend, actress Isla Fisher, converted to Judiasm in 2007. In the same year they also had their first child, Olive. In 2010, Sacha and Isla wed.

Tim Burton cast Cohen to play the charlatan miracle elixir salesman Signor Adolfo Pirelli in his adaptation of Sondheim’s classic musical Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. Cohen sang his own part just like the rest of the nontraditional cast.

Director Martin Scorsese wooed Cohen to play Station Inspector Gustav in Hugo, his movie adaptation of Brian Selznick's novel The Invention of Hugo Cabret. Cohen plays the foil to 12-year-old Hugo Cabret, who lives in the Paris rail station in 1931.

In The Dictator, Cohen plays Admiral General Aladeen, a dictator/despot from the fictional Republic of Wadiya. When his country’s people overthrow him to start a democracy, Aladeen is banished to America, where he lives amongst our “rabble,” plotting to get his country back.