Selim Bayraktar

Selim Bayraktar — Biography

Selim Bayraktar was born in Kirkuk on 17 June 1975 to a Turkish father and a Kirkuk-born mother; after finishing primary school there, he moved with his family to Turkey in 1987, settling first in Eskişehir and then Antalya, where he completed his secondary education. He graduated in 2000 from the Ankara State Conservatory's theatre department, part of Hacettepe University, then worked at the Diyarbakır State Theatre before joining the Antalya State Theatre in 2007, appearing in plays including Othello, Sırça Kümes and Bay Kolpert and winning Best Actor at the Sadri Alışık Anatolian Theatre Awards.

He entered television in 2006 with the series Köprü and became widely known for playing the eunuch Sümbül Ağa in Muhteşem Yüzyıl from 2011. He gained international recognition as Çandarlı Halil Pasha in Netflix's Rise of Empires: Ottoman (2020), a role he reprised in TRT's Mehmed: Fetihler Sultanı, and has also appeared in films such as Vezir Parmağı, İstanbul Kırmızısı and Aşk Sana Benzer. In 2023 he married fellow actor Emel Karaköse after a five-year relationship.