Tayfun Bademsoy

Tayfun Bademsoy — Biography

Tayfun Bademsoy was born on 14 October 1958 in Mersin, the son of a Turkish family who moved to Berlin in 1969 for work. He began his career in 1980 sharing the lead in the television film Zuhause unter Fremden with his mother, Sabahat Bademsoy, made for the SFB channel. After ten semesters at the Technical University of Berlin, he drew wide attention in 1983 playing a Turkish youth in Peter Stein's stage adaptation of Klassen Feind, and went on to perform at major theatres such as the Frankfurter Schauspielhaus and Berlin's Renaissance Theater.

He has appeared in more than 350 film and television productions, becoming especially known for roles in crime series such as Tatort and Polizeiruf 110, some episodes of which he shared with his mother. In his first Hollywood role he played Atlantic Records founder Ahmet Ertegün in Beyond the Sea, and he is also the German voice of Sayid in Lost. In 1995 he founded Germany's only agency representing foreign actors and ran it for ten years. His sister, Aysun Bademsoy, is a documentary filmmaker.