Sibel Kekilli

Sibel Kekilli — Biography

Sibel Kekilli was born on 16 June 1980 in Heilbronn and is a German actress of Turkish descent. Before her breakthrough she had worked in the adult film industry, a chapter of her career she later discussed openly. She drew wide public notice playing the title character in Fatih Akin's Head-On (2004), a role that won her the Lola, the German Film Award for best actress, and she took a second Lola for When We Leave (2010); Tribeca named her its best actress the same year. In 2004 a German magazine ranked her thirty-third among the country's hundred most important people. From 2011 she reached an international audience as Shae in HBO's Game of Thrones, and she went on to play detective Sarah Brandt in the Kiel-set episodes of the long-running crime series Tatort. She has continued acting in film and television in the years since, including the 2025 release Yunan.