Kabir Bedi inaugurated the week of great guests of El Hormiguero with the one who was the main star of the mythical series Sandokán. For many he is a true stranger, but in the 70s he became an international figure thanks to the adventure series, something that today could only be compared to Netflix hits like Money Heist.
At first, he recalled how he came to land that life-changing role, even though he was very close to turning it down: “The team had decided that they wanted to have an Asian actor as the lead, so they were visiting different Asian cities, including Bombay. There many told him about me so they met me”.
The conditions were what made him reject it at first. “They invited me to go to Rome for the casting, but I had to pay for the trip. I said no, but I finally went. I did all kinds of tests. We recorded the action scenes, the dramatic ones, the romantic ones…”, he remembered.
Luckily he passed the casting and became an acting legend, but the first months were not easy, since fame came long before money. “The first few days the wardrobe director had to lend me money to buy me a coat. I had traveled from India without one because I didn’t think it would be cold in Italy,” she confessed.
Before being an actor, he took his first steps as a journalist on Indian radio, which links him to Pablo Motos, who before succeeding as a television presenter did it on the radio with the program We are nobody. The guest recalled that he had to work hard to get an interview with The Beatles.
After insisting a lot, he only got an interview with his agent, but at the last moment luck changed: “The agent opened the door for me, but he wasn’t feeling well so he asked me to accompany him. We toured the entire hotel until we reached a suite. Paul McCartney knocked and answered the door, and asked him to give me an interview. And we did it!”
In his memoirs, he remembers a very dangerous moment that he wanted to remind the viewers of El Hormiguero. “They called me to sign at El Corte Inglés, it would be on the top floor. When I arrived they told me that all the floors were full of people and the director told me that I had to go,” he began.
The problem was that because of the great crowds there was a lot of danger “because the building was not designed to hold so many people, I thought it was a joke”. When he went out into the street, he did it without any kind of security, so the fans rushed: “I feared for my life.”
Kabir Bedi had to escape by jumping in the center of Madrid on top of parked cars, which later became a problem. “There were 30 reports of dented cars,” but the mall decided to pay the fines before the actor got into trouble.
