Baki Davrak

Baki Davrak — Biography

Baki Davrak is a theatre-trained stage and screen actor whose career spans Germany and Turkey. He became known for playing Nejat Aksu, a professor of Turkish descent who teaches German, in Fatih Akın's Yaşamın Kıyısında (The Edge of Heaven), a film that took the best screenplay prize at Cannes in 2007 among several international awards.

He trained in Hannover and Berlin theatres and never left the stage while working in film. His first notable role was Murat in Kutluğ Ataman's Lola + Bilidikid, and he also appeared in Thomas Arslan's Dealer. He then stepped away from cinema, reportedly working as a park caretaker, until Akın offered him the lead. In the same year he took part in Harald Bergmann's Brinkmanns Zorn. On German television he mostly had small parts in series such as Wolffs Revier, Eva Blond and Tatort, and in 2008-2009 he voiced chief investigator Nadir Taraki in a WDR radio crime series.

His later phase has been largely Turkish: Bizim Büyük Çaresizliğimiz, Unutma Beni İstanbul, Kırımlı, the Greek commander Vasili in Vatanım Sensin, Ogeday Erdenet in Çukur, Avram in Kudüs Fatihi Selahaddin Eyyubi, and Rise of Empires: Ottoman. He also writes; his first poetry collection was due in 2007 and was delayed.