Elif Melda Yılmaz

Elif Melda Yılmaz — Biography

Elif Melda Yılmaz is an actress whose route from stage to television joins theater, musicals and voice work. She currently plays Beril, Kıvılcım's neighbor, in Kızılcık Şerbeti, but most of her career took shape on the theater stage, and alongside acting she has done voice-over work and singing.

Her path began in Eskişehir with music and folk-dance training and continued in her high-school years with radio programming and presenting on a private station. While studying in the Theatre Department of Bilkent University's Faculty of Music and Performing Arts she worked as an entertainer, creative-drama teacher and voice-over artist for films and documentaries, appeared on stage at the Ankara State Theatre and performed as a jazz vocalist. In 2000 she became one of the founding actors of the Eskişehir Metropolitan Municipality City Theatres, playing in seventeen productions over about sixteen years, seven of them musicals. For Kanlı Nigar she received the year's best female artist awards from the Contemporary Journalists Association and the Sadri Alışık Anatolian Theatre Awards in 2013, and she took the role of Atifet in the musical Lüküs Hayat.

Her first screen appearance was Tatil Aşkları in 2004, and in 2008 she took one of the lead roles in Ali Özgentürk's film Yengeç Oyunu. Later roles include Agent Meryem in Kurtlar Vadisi Pusu, Alev in Esaretim Sensin, Feyza in Aşkın Tarifi and Ayten in Yargı, which she joined in September 2022. She has also shared acoustic song performances with listeners.