Yasemin Çonka

Yasemin Çonka — Biography

Yasemin Çonka, also known as Yasemin Baştan, is an experienced actress who has worked in both television and theatre. She is best remembered as Melek Suruç in İkinci Bahar and played Nazlı in the long-running series Seksenler; in recent years she appeared as Nergis Şimşekoğlu in Yılmaz Erdoğan's series İnci Taneleri (2024), which he wrote and stars in.

She graduated from the Theatre Department of Mimar Sinan University's State Conservatory in 1993. Her stage work began with the Bakırköy Municipality Theatre during her student years and continued at the State Theatre in the play Ferhat. She worked for a time as an announcer at Radyo Sport and became director of Radyo Fener, and from 1996 to 1998 she studied English at Monterey Peninsula College in California. Her first work in front of a camera was Bizim Ev in 1995. In İkinci Bahar, broadcast from 1998 to 2001, she worked alongside Türkan Şoray and Şener Şen; as Pembe in Yeditepe İstanbul and Çiçek Kozan in Bir İstanbul Masalı she widened her audience.

In later years she took part in productions such as Hırsız Polis, Bayrampaşa: Ben Fazla Kalmayacağım!, Aşk Meydan Savaşı (2002), Devrim Arabaları (2008), Gönülçelen, Araf (2012, as Meryem), Tereddüt (2016), Yapışık Kardeşler and Cici Babam, and in 2021 played Sultan Yılmaz in Aşkın Tarifi. On stage she appeared in Herkesin Gözü Önünde and, at BKM, in Kadınlar, Filler ve Saireler (2016-2017).