Ayşe Tezel

Ayşe Tezel — Biography

Ayşe Tezel is a London-born actress, voice-over artist and content creator associated with the New Zealand screen scene. She is best known for playing Canthara as a guest in Spartacus: War of the Damned in 2013, a role the Turkish press of the time reported with headlines about a Turkish actress in Spartacus. Her father is Turkish and her mother is a New Zealander, and she is described as British-Turkish.

She took her first ballet lesson at three and enrolled in a repertory theater at eight. Her acting career began in April 2002 with two episodes of the New Zealand series Shortland Street, in which she played Melody Goodall. Her first film was the New Zealand production Meet Me in Miami (2005), where she played Annie. After moving to Sydney in 2004 she landed her first major roles in the features Gene-X and Court of Lonely Royals, and Sione's 2: Unfinished Business is among her credits. She later returned to London to study Method Acting and worked on the film London Thing, the web series Conquering Demons and Manhattan Money, and various short films.

Her voice has also been heard in advertisements for OK! Magazine, Path of Exile, The Beverly Hills Hotel, Sheilas' Wheels, Barclays Bank and Air New Zealand. After a long break she returned to Shortland Street in July 2021 in a different role from her 2002 one.