Ali Sürmeli

Ali Sürmeli — Biography

Ali Sürmeli was born on 7 April 1959 in the Solhan district of Bingöl to a family of Zaza origin, with roots in a village in the Varto district of Muş province. His father worked as a postal official, and the family's postings took them through several towns of eastern Anatolia during his childhood. He graduated from the theatre department of Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University's State Conservatory in 1985, after which he performed with the State Theatres of Adana, Ankara and Istanbul as well as with Sokak Tiyatrosu and Dostlar Tiyatrosu, later directing a few productions of his own. He made his film debut in 1983 in a picture directed by Halit Refiğ and took his first leading role in 1995 in a film directed by Tülay Eratalay. Sürmeli has since appeared in more than thirty films; his role in Sokaktaki Adam brought him two awards in 1996, and he won a supporting-actor prize at the Golden Orange festival in 2000 for Filler ve Çimen and an Afife Theatre Award in 2012 for Antigone. He is best known to television audiences for his character in Kurtlar Vadisi Pusu. After suffering a brain hemorrhage in the autumn of 2020, he returned to acting and went on to appear in the series Adım Farah, Kuruluş Osman and, in 2026, Eşref Rüya.