Haluk Bilginer

Biography

Haluk Bilginer is one of Turkey’s most celebrated actors and the first Turkish actor to win an International Emmy Award, which he received for the crime series Şahsiyet (2018). He was born on 5 June 1954 in İzmir. He also starred in Kış Uykusu (Winter Sleep), winner of the Palme d’Or at Cannes, and has a long international career.

Training

Bilginer graduated from the Ankara State Conservatory in 1977 and then from the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA).

EastEnders and international work

In Britain he is still remembered as Mehmet Osman in the BBC soap EastEnders (1985–1989). Nicknamed “the Terrible Turk”, the character was one of the show’s most popular in the 1980s, and Bilginer reportedly received sackfuls of fan mail despite playing a villain.

He has appeared in Hollywood productions as a character actor, including The International (2009), W.E. (2011), Ben-Hur (2016), Halloween (2018) and Maria (2024), often playing villains and complex antiheroes.

Turkish film and television

In Turkey he is a star of stage and screen. In Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s Kış Uykusu (2014) he played Aydın, a retired actor running a hotel in Cappadocia. As Agah Beyoğlu, a retired municipal clerk with Alzheimer’s who sets out to take revenge, in Şahsiyet, he won the Best Actor award at the 47th International Emmy Awards. He later led the family crime drama Baba as Sadık.

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