Ayberk Pekcan

Ayberk Pekcan — Biography

Ayberk Pekcan was a character actor whom Turkish audiences knew well and who became widely loved, including in Pakistan, as Artuk Bey in Diriliş Ertuğrul. In cinema he collected critics' awards for Saç, Aşk ve Devrim and Kış Uykusu. He died in Mersin in January 2022, and his last film, Dilberay, reached cinemas ten days later, on 4 February.

Before acting he worked as a labourer, a civil servant and a teacher, and in 1991 he was involved in local politics on the Social Democratic Populist Party side. He grew up in Adana and Mersin and studied theatre at the Faculty of Fine Arts of Mersin University. In 2001 he left the civil service and moved to Istanbul to act professionally. He first appeared on screen in 1995 in Çiçek Taksi, and later took major roles in series such as Tatlı Hayat, Ihlamurlar Altında, Yaprak Dökümü, Kurtlar Vadisi Pusu and Keşanlı Ali Destanı.

His film work gained weight after 2010: Saç, in which he played the lead, earned him the Turkish Film Critics Association's best actor award in 2011, and Aşk ve Devrim brought best supporting actor in Ankara and best actor in İzmir in 2012. His performance in Nuri Bilge Ceylan's Kış Uykusu was recognised with a supporting actor award and a Sadri Alışık special jury prize, and he also appeared in Mustang. Because of the interest in Diriliş Ertuğrul there, he visited Pakistan with a delegation in 2020. In October 2021 he announced himself that he had lung cancer; he was buried in Tarsus.