Esra Bezen Bilgin

Esra Bezen Bilgin — Biography

Esra Bezen Bilgin is a theatre actress whose award-winning stage career carried over into film and television. For many years the centre of her work was the Kocaeli City Theatre in İzmit; on screen she became known through the films Silsile and Ana Yurdu and the series Bizim Hikaye and Sol Yanım.

After graduating from the Theatre Department of Hacettepe University's Ankara State Conservatory, she joined the city theatre's company in 1997 and played in many productions, among them Hamlet, Lysistrata, Roberto Zucco, The Threepenny Opera, Cimri, Kösem Sultan and Kral Lear. She also appeared at Aksanat New Generation Theatre, at Talimhane Tiyatrosu and in independent productions. For Sam Shepard's Aşk Delisi she received the Sadri Alışık award for best actress in 2005, and for Lucy Kirkwood's Önce Bir Boşluk Oldu Kalp Gidince, Ama Şimdi İyi she was named most successful actress of the year by the Afife Theatre Awards, the Sadri Alışık awards and the Theatre Critics Association in 2012.

She entered film with Reha Erdem's Korkuyorum Anne. For Silsile she won Best Supporting Actress at the 21st Golden Cocoon Film Festival, and for Ana Yurdu the Film Writers Association's award for best female performance of the year. On television she played Şükran in Bizim Hikaye, Nilgün in Sol Yanım and the psychiatrist Gamze in Cezailer. Trained in puppet design, she also worked as an assistant director on puppet plays; she is married to theatre director Mehmet Ergen and has a son.