Ken Davitian is an assured comic partner: his deadpan makes absurd behaviour seem perfectly routine. Borat gives his physical commitment a proper use, though the small, bumbling or sleazy parts around it suggest how narrowly he has been cast.
Fi1m perspective
Ken Davitian plays Azamat in Borat (2006) as though there is nothing peculiar about being beside Sacha Baron Cohen. The deadpan matters: an actor who advertised his amusement would give everyone else permission to stop taking the pair seriously. Davitian commits to the character and the physical comedy without making a separate appeal to be liked. We laughed hard at the contrast between his straight-faced delivery and the obscenity around him. It is a performance worth seeking out, though the film sometimes buys its embarrassment too cheaply.
Before that breakthrough, his work largely meant small film and television parts, often cab drivers or shop owners. Holes (2003), in which he played Igor Barkov, belongs to that earlier stretch. Afterwards came Shtarker in Get Smart (2008), a pawnbroker in The Artist (2011) and the recurring part of Armand Zarkarian in Cobra Kai, from 2018 to 2021. Those credits brought more visible supporting work, but the tendency to cast him as bumbling or sleazy figures persisted.
Davitian speaks Armenian in Borat, a concrete contribution to a character who has to be accepted as real. He also auditioned in character, without identifying himself as an American actor. That approach suits Larry Charles and Cohen's prank-film method, which depends on encounters between invented characters and real people. The real people's reactions supply the film's sharpest moments, but somebody must make the fiction credible enough to get those reactions. Davitian's seriousness is useful here: he can support the deception without competing with Cohen for every laugh.
The repeated narrow casting is less encouraging. Such parts can make a capable comic actor seem interchangeable, especially when looking foolish is all the writing asks of him. We would welcome more roles that require his straight-faced concentration as well as his willingness to surrender his dignity. Start with Borat; squeamish company may require a different plan.
Biography
Ken Davitian is an American actor and restaurateur. Born on 19 June 1953 in Los Angeles, California, he is best known for his role as Azamat Bagatov, Borat's producer, in the 2006 film Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan.
Davitian is of Armenian American descent. He graduated from Whittier College and is fluent in Armenian, which he used in his Borat performance. His other screen credits include Get Smart (2008) as Shtarker, The Artist (2011) as a pawnbroker, and recurring appearances in the series Cobra Kai (2018) as Armand Zarkarian. He founded the Los Angeles restaurant The Dip in 2003.
