Orhan Güner

Orhan Güner — Biography

Orhan Güner is best known in Turkey as Chief Inspector İzzet in the series Galip Derviş, yet most of his artistic life has unfolded on stage in Germany. Alongside acting he has written plays, directed, worked as a dramaturg and taken an interest in literary translation. He continues to appear in both German and Turkish productions.

His career began in the 1980s in German theaters, and at the Schaubühne Berlin Turkish ensemble he worked as both writer and director. His plays İkinci Nöbetçinin Sıkıntıları, Sevdalı Bulut and Antonius, Kleopatra, Arada Bir Caesar were gathered in a single book and were staged many times in German theaters. Turkish audiences hardly knew him until İkinci Nöbetçinin Sıkıntıları was produced by the Ankara State Theatres and the Istanbul City Theatres. Sevdalı Bulut turns Nâzım Hikmet's well-known fable into a poetic stage exercise for young theater-makers.

He entered cinema in 2004 with Duvara Karşı (Head-On) and Beyond the Sea, played Arpad in Armin (2007), and followed with Separation (2010) and Berlin Kaplanı (2012). He also appeared in the German crime series Tatort. His Turkish television run opened with Bir Günah Gibi (2011) and Sultan (2012) and led to a starring role in Galip Derviş (2013). Between 2015 and 2017 he played Hüseyin Soydere in Kara Sevda, and he went on with Sana Söz (2021) and the role of Behlül Hodja in the film Yurt (Dormitory, 2023). Born in Ankara, he comes from a family from the Çamlıhemşin district of Rize.