'Borat 2' director explains how they pulled off the Tom Hanks cameo

• Warning: Spoilers ahead for "Borat Subsequent Moviefilm."
• "Borat 2" director Jason Woliner told Insider that the Tom Hanks cameo came about after Sacha Baron Cohen emailed him out of the blue.
• Luckily, Hanks was game and the scene was shot over one day on a soundstage in Los Angeles just weeks before the movie was delivered to Amazon for its release.

There are a lot of surprising and downright shocking moments in "Borat Subsequent Moviefilm," and one of the best is when Tom Hanks shows up out of nowhere.

At the end of the movie, Borat (Sacha Baron Cohen) has a "Usual Suspects"-like epiphany when he realizes his return to America wasn't really to offer his daughter to vice president Mike Pence but to be the one to spread the coronavirus pandemic around the world after he's injected with the virus.

We watch as he has flashbacks of his journey by boat around the world before finally getting to the US, pinpointing where he caused infections. That includes Sydney, Australia where we see him encounter Tom Hanks as the global star is taking a selfie with a fan.

"You the Forrest the Gump!" Borat says to Hanks. The star nods his head and allows Borat to have a picture taken with him. Borat coughs on the actor.

Hanks was the first major celebrity to go public that he (and his wife Rita Wilson) got the coronavirus. In March, the two were in Australia while Hanks was shooting a movie.

"Borat 2" director Jason Woliner told Insider the idea for the Hanks cameo came when they inserted the COVID-19 plot.

"Once we came up with the idea that Borat would be COVID patient zero, someone had the joke that we see him stop in Sydney and he coughs on Tom Hanks," he said. "Sacha knows him and just sent him an email and we just crossed our fingers that he would be up for it."

Hanks was game and the scene was shot over one day on a soundstage in Los Angeles just weeks before the movie was delivered to Amazon for its release. (As it was shot during the pandemic, everyone on set was tested for COVID-19 and the crew all wore masks.)

"That was a scene we wanted to be very clear that was scripted and we weren't actually ambushing the most beloved man in America," Woliner said, noting the scene's look that clearly is a green screen of Sydney in the background.

And in a fun moment for Woliner, he played the Hanks fan in the scene who is interrupted by Borat.

"It was surreal," he said. "The closest person I've been next to without a mask on throughout the pandemic, besides my wife, turns out to be Tom Hanks."

"Borat Subsequent Moviefilm" is available on Amazon Prime Video.

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