Mahir Günşıray

Mahir Günşıray — Biography

Mahir Günşiray was born on August 10, 1960, in Istanbul. After graduating from the Theatre Department of the Faculty of Fine Arts at Hacettepe University, he earned a master's degree at the Workshop Theatre of the University of Leeds in England and later a doctorate in fine arts from Mimar Sinan University. He began his acting career at the Bursa State Theatre in 1986 and went on to work at the Istanbul State Theatre and Germany's Theatre an der Ruhr, before co-founding the Tiyatro Oyunevi company with friends in 1996, where he also worked as a director.

On television, Günşiray first drew attention in the late 1980s with Ayaşlı ve Kiracıları and Baharın Bittiği Yer, and in the 2000s reached wide audiences as Girayhan Kırınlı in Sağır Oda, Ali İhsan in İffet, Stavro in Sürgün and Nihat Mazharoğlu in Çilek Kokusu. He played Hazım Egemen in the 2017 series Fazilet Hanım ve Kızları, and gained international visibility in 2023-2024 playing Ural in the Netflix series Şahmaran.

In early 2026, Günşiray revealed that his decades-long friendship with actress Hatice Aslan, whom he had known for 40 years, had turned into a romantic relationship, a story that drew wide coverage in the Turkish press.