Borat Subsequent Moviefilm star Maria Bakalova has said she believes Rudy Giuliani “touched [her] first” in the film.

The actress, who played Borat’s daughter Tutar in the recently released sequel, gave more detail about the controversial scene in which she poses as a journalist interviewing Donald Trump’s attorney Rudy Giuliani.

• Read more: ‘Borat Subsequent Moviefilm’ review: how the controversial Kazakh journalist got woke

“I tried to believe I was this character, who was doing everything to save her father,” Bakalova told IndieWire in a new interview. “As Maria, I was doing everything to save the scene. I was using what I was given as a resource.”

Maintaining the ambiguous nature of the scene, which sees Giuliani and Bakalova retreat to a hotel room after an interview before Borat storms in, Bakalova said “I saw what you saw,” but added that “He touched me first.”

On the preparation for the scene, she said: “I was quite confident that I had to do the scene. I’m not an American. I’ve only been here for a year. But I’m an actress, and I had a duty.”

Borat Subsequent Moviefilm was released on Amazon Prime Video last month, and saw Sacha Baron Cohen reprise his role as the hapless Kazakh journalist returning to the US once more.

In a three-star review of the film, NME said: “There are still scenes of stunning impropriety, but they are fewer in number. It’s strange to say, given Twitter’s perpetual state of indignation, but a lot of what Borat says in this movie won’t seem scandalous.”