Hakan Karahan

Hakan Karahan — Biography

Born in Istanbul in 1960, Hakan Karahan finished Robert College before studying business at the University of Miami, graduating in 1983; he then worked at Du Pont de Nemours in Geneva and, back in Turkey, held management posts within Sabancı Holding until 2003, during which time he wrote nearly seventy articles for various publications.

A longtime volleyball player and a third-dan black belt in Aikido since 1990, Karahan is also an author, having published a guide to Aikido along with poetry and novels. In 2007 he founded the production company Narsist Film to adapt literary works for cinema, acquiring the film rights to five works including Hasan Ali Toptaş's Gölgesizler.

He entered acting in 2006, both writing the scripts for and playing Oğuz Bey in Sağır Oda; he went on to appear in Ateşin Düştüğü Yer, Takip: İstanbul, and Kaçak, played Ragıp Tolunay in Zeytin Tepesi, Özer in Eşkıya Dünyaya Hükümdar Olmaz, and Lakmu across both seasons of Şahmaran. He has written many song lyrics for singer Candan Erçetin, his partner of more than three decades, and the couple remained together as of 2026.