Cemal Hünal

Cemal Hünal — Biography

Cemal Hünal was born on 2 October 1976 in the Maçka district of Istanbul and spent his childhood in a family apartment building his grandfather had built. After two years marked by disciplinary trouble at the French lycée Saint Benoit, his family sent him, at seventeen, to a summer school in Scotland called Gordonstoun; he then studied design in London before moving to Los Angeles to pursue acting. He trained in theatre and film at UCLA Extension, Santa Monica College and the London Film School, taking jobs such as dishwashing and waiting tables to get by as a student.

His film career began in 2007 with Çağan Irmak's Ulak, and he became widely known the following year for Irmak's Issız Adam, opposite Melis Birkan. Around the same time he reached television audiences playing Kerim in the series Asi, filmed in Antakya. He went on to appear in productions including Bir Zamanlar Osmanlı: Kıyam, Osmanlı Tokadı and Paramparça, and played Ares in the TRT1 series Diriliş Ertuğrul.

He runs a restaurant in Nişantaşı and a beach club on Sedef Island. Hünal married and divorced while living in Los Angeles in 2004, then married Lale Cangal in 2011. In 2013 he was among thirty actors briefly taken into custody as part of a narcotics investigation.