Başak Köklükaya

Başak Köklükaya — Biography

Başak Köklükaya was born on 19 April 1974 in Ankara. She studied at Hacettepe University before training in the ballet department of the Ankara State Conservatory and the theatre department of Bilkent University's Faculty of Music and Performing Arts. She joined the Şehir Tiyatroları (City Theatres) in 1995, the same year she made her television debut in Yazlıkçılar and her film debut in Ferzan Özpetek's Hamam, which earned her a promising-newcomer award at the Ankara Film Festival. Her role in Zeki Demirkubuz's Üçüncü Sayfa (1999) swept nearly every major Turkish film award, including prizes from the Antalya and Istanbul festivals, and she was also honored at a festival in Spain in 2001. Her part in İtiraf carried the film into the Un Certain Regard section of the 2002 Cannes Film Festival. Following films such as Bir Tutam Baharat, Mustafa Hakkında Herşey, Organize İşler, Harem Suare and Derviş, she won further best-actress honors for Küçük Kıyamet (2006) and again for İşe Yarar Bir Şey (2017). Since 2019 she has reached wide international audiences playing Serap Özgürsoy across all three seasons of the Netflix series Atiye.