A James Bond villain, a voting member of the Oscar panel, a Cavaliere title from Italy... even listing out all the achievements of this Hollywood and Bollywood legend would require a lot of space. Now, he is making his debut in Mollywood through the debut directorial venture of Sachy, Anarkali, which will be releasing in October. Kabir Bedi says, “I have been living abroad for the past 25 years, being the only actor from India to make a full-fledged career in movies abroad.”
Kabir Bedi says, “It started with Sandokhan (the six episode tele-series that still holds the world record for the highest viewership even 40 years after its release). The show has been telecast so many times that every generation in Europe is familiar with it. That gave me a wonderful launch pad for my international career and led to lots of good things like the James Bond and Bold and Beautiful movies and my Cavaliere title. But at the end of the day, I chose to come back to India. I haven’t seen many Malayalam films, but Chemmeen was a movie that influenced me a lot. Later, I saw Adoor Gopalakrishnan, Aravindan and Shaji films and was impressed. So when Rajeev Nair, the producer of Anarkali, approached me for the character, I readily agreed. It’s got a great actor like Prithviraj, Sachy is a great director, Sujith Vasudev who did Drishyam is our cameraman... This would mark my debut in South India. I had plans to be part of the Tamil film Aaravan, it didn’t work out. Even though this is my first Malayalam film, I have worked with a Malayali crew earlier for the tele-series Bible Ki Kahaniyaan by Jijo, in which I played Abraham. We were shooting in the scorching heat in Rajasthan, but the crew showed such dedication, shooting at all hours of the day and night, and I see the same dedication with this team.”
He will be playing the role of Jaffer, a Rear Admiral from a Nawabi family, in the film. “I visited the Kochi Naval Base and met the officers to learn a bit about their way of life when I came for the shoot. They are very jovial and believe in having loads of fun. But my character is a harsh man with very rigid and disciplinary beliefs. The film goes through 15 years of his life and the conflicts that come when his daughter falls in love with Prithviraj’s character,” he adds.
“I have just come back from the Bulgaria shoot of Rohit Shetty’s Dilwale and will soon join them for the second schedule. I’m also working in Ashutosh Gowariker’s epic film Mohenjadaro. They have recreated the whole city of Mohenjadaro in an exceptional outdoor set. Then there is an English film, Scandalous, along with the king of Soca music, Machel Montano. It was shot in the West Indies in March and talks about the relationship between a West Indian man and an Indian woman and all the complications that it brings. It’s a light-hearted movie, not all rona-dhona, and I have a very colourful character. I’m also working on dubbing Sandokhan into Hindi. I’m producing it myself and it will be released online soon. The work for an autobiography has also been going on for some time. But, I am very particular about how I write and it’s not easy to write about something so personal. So it will come out someday, but right now I’m busy with my films. Besides, I’m still too busy living my adventures.”
Kabir Bedi came to Mumbai initially to become a director before turning to acting. “I worked in the advertising industry for five years learning the craft and I can become a director tomorrow if I want. But I have never found a subject or story that interested me enough. If that happens, I’ll do it. But what I really want to do now is act in a science-fiction movie as I have not acted in that genre yet and I would have really loved to be a part of the Game of Thrones, but I think it’s not possible unless a new character gets introduced,” he says wistfully.
