Actor Kabir Bedi, talking about a 'traumatic' chapter in his life when he went bankrupt, has said that it was 'very humiliating'. The actor recently released his autobiography, titled Stories I Must Tell: The Emotional Journey of an Actor in which he has spoken about all phases of his life. The actor also talked about his 26-year-old son Siddharth's suicide. Siddharth was diagnosed with schizophrenia and committed suicide in 1997.
In a recent interview with Brut India, Kabir recollected the days when breaking into Hollywood was not an easy challenge. While the obstacles are endless in this day and age as well, Bedi recollected that during those times, Hollywood “had no qualms about taking a white actor, painting him brown and giving him the role that you were best for.”
Kabir Bedi speaks to Brut about his life, loves and his autobiography, Stories I Must Tell. pic.twitter.com/C4sz3tH4zA
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His response to this was that he would play the role of just a foreigner. “I adapted to this by saying, ‘Okay, I will simply play the foreigner in Hollywood. I don’t restrict myself to Asian or Indian.’ And therefore, the roles that I got, one of the huge roles that I got with Michael Caine in a film called Ashanti, I played a Tuareg tribesman,” he shared.
Kabir recollected that it was in the 1983 Bond film Octopussy where he played an Indian guy. “It was only in Octopussy, the Bond film where I actually played an Indian.”
Kabir believes that being a part of the Bond family gets you in front of millions of audiences around the world and that was a very special experience for him. “Any actor who plays any role of any interest in a Bond film becomes a person of great interest to hundreds of millions of Bond fans around the world. You become part of the Bond family and that’s a very special experience. So while the hero might be preferable, being a Bond villain is no less joyous, glamorous, or no less exciting,” he shared.
During the interaction, Kabir also hinted that he had to declare bankruptcy during his Hollywood days. “I went through traumatic experiences with my son’s suicide, with my bankruptcy in Hollywood. It’s very humiliating for a celebrity to be bankrupted. But you have to find ways of rising, and resurrecting yourself. All through my life, I’ve reinvented myself.”
(Source: Brut India)
