Maria Bakalova

Maria Valcheva Bakalova[a] (/bəˈkɑːlɒvə/ bə-KAH-lo-və; born 4 June 1996) is a Bulgarian actress. She is best known for her role as Tutar Sagdiyev in the 2020 mockumentary Borat Subsequent Moviefilm. For her performance in the film, she won the Critics' Choice Movie Award for Best Supporting Actress, and received nominations at the Academy Awards, the BAFTA Film Awards, the Golden Globe Awards and the Screen Actors Guild Awards. Born and raised in Burgas, Bakalova began her career in Bulgarian cinema by starring in film productions while attending the National Academy for Theatre and Film Arts in Sofia. She appeared in films such as Transgression (2017), The Father (2019), Last Call (2020) and Women Do Cry (2021). She has since had starring roles in Judd Apatow's The Bubble (2022), the A24 horror film Bodies Bodies Bodies (2022) and the romantic comedy The Honeymoon (2022). Maria Valcheva Bakalova was born on 4 June 1996 in Burgas to Rumyana Bakalova and Valcho Bakalov. She began taking singing lessons and playing the flute around age six. Bakalova enrolled in acting classes at the age of 12, majoring in drama theater and minoring in flute at the National School of Music and Stage Arts in Burgas, where she was a straight A student; she recalled, "I was a super-disciplined child. I was reading too many books. I was obsessed with Dostoyevsky, at like 15, 16." As a teenager, Bakalova developed an interest in literature, especially the works of Gabriel García Márquez, Jorge Luis Borges and Mikhail Bulgakov, as a method of escapism. She was inspired to pursue film acting after watching The Hunt, and has cited filmmaker Thomas Vinterberg as her biggest influence alongside Susanne Bier, Pedro Almodóvar, Paolo Sorrentino and Andrea Arnold as other major influences.