Actor Kabir Bedi remembers director Rakesh Roshan calling him up in Los Angeles in 1990. “He asked me, ‘Kabir, I am making a movie called Khoon Bhari Maang. Will you act in it?’ And I said, ‘Are heroes in Bollywood on strike? Why are you calling me in Hollywood?’” he laughs as he sips his tea at his Juhu apartment. “But then he said, ‘It’s a role of hero who becomes a villain. You are neither a hero nor villain. You have no image.’ Khoon Bhari Maang was a super hit, and remains a cult classic. But, Roshan may have been wrong about Bedi not having an “image”. In fact, it’s his image as the “exotic Indian” who could also look Arab or Mediterranean, that got him roles like villain Gobinda in the James Bond movie Octopussy, or pitted him opposite Hunter Tylo in the popular American soap, The Bold and the Beautiful.