Maria Bakalova was born in 1996 in Burgas, Bulgaria. She gained international recognition for her role as Tutar Sagdiyev in the 2020 mockumentary Borat Subsequent Moviefilm, for which she won Critics' Choice Movie Award for Best Supporting Actress and earned nominations at the Academy Awards, the BAFTA Film Awards, the Golden Globe Awards, and the Screen Actors Guild Awards.[2] Bakalova is the first Bulgarian to be nominated for these awards.