Popular Turkish Actresses Who Started Their Careers with A Beauty Pageant

A beauty pageant or contest is a competition that mainly focuses on the physical beauty of its contests, although such contests often incorporate personality, talent, and answers to judges’ questions as judged criteria. The winners of beauty contests are often called beauty queens.

This competition focuses on makeup, hair, gowns swimsuit modelling, and personal interviews. Possible awards include titles, tiaras or crowns, sashes, saving bonds, cash prizes and the biggest possible prizes for these beautiful stars was an opening to the world of acting.

Many of our favourite’s Turkish stars had been in these competitions in Turkey ever more than in other countries. The most popular one for them now worldwide is Hande Ercel. 

Hande Ercel

After winning second place in the Miss Azerbaijan pageant in 2012 caught the attention of cinema producers. She began her career as an actress and went on to do small roles in the series “The Crazy School” as Maryam and “The Wren Bird” as Zahida.

Her biggest success in 2016 came in the form of “Daughters of Gunesh” as Selin Yilmaz bagging the main role. After that, she modelled in magazines covers and was the face of many brands.

Serenay Sarikaya

The next great actor we are going to talk about is Serenay Sarikaya who participated in a beauty pageant in Turkey in 2010. She won second place, but she'd dreamt of being an actress and wanted to show the world her talent. 

She began her career at the age of fifteen as Etier at “Confused” movie then she pursued her passion by studying acting in college, after that she took the main role which made her a popular name in Turkey as Yashim in “Lale Devri”. 

She bagged an amazing number of awards (25) at a young age. She would be soon seen starring in a Netflix original series.

Melisa Asli Pamuk

This is another beautiful actress that joined the Miss Turkey competition and was crowned Miss Turkey in 2011. She is a Dutch-Turkish actress and model who started her career directly after her winning. 

But she became a well-known name in the acting world when she played Aisha character in “Kurt Saeed and Shura” with Kivanç Tatlituğ and Farah Zeynep Abdullah.

She is currently doing major roles in several series.  Her latest works are “Collision” and “New Life”. Soon Melisa will be playing a historical character in the series “Great Sultan”.

Hazal Subaşı

Despite being a student of public relations and media at Izmir University of Economics she chose to become a model and actress. She won third place in the Miss Turkey competition in 2015 and then started her career in 2016 in “Call It Whatever You Want”.

She made her breakthrough with her role as a police officer who is trying to achieve justice by apprehending a dangerous mafia gang in the series Halka.

Miss Turkey on 2014

In the year 2014, three beautiful and famous actresses participated in the Miss Turkey Pagent and were placed first, second and third. Amine Gulsha Ozil is a Turkish-Swedish actress. She was crowned Miss Turkey in 2014.

After which she played the main role in “I Will Never Give Up” in 2015. Amine got married to the famous football player Mesut Ozil in June 2019.

Dilan Çiçek Deniz received second place in the competition. She is currently working as an actress and model. She made her breakthrough with the role of Sena in “The Pit” which starred the famous actress Aras Bulut Iynemli as a major role. 

Dilan worked with Netflix last year and played a major role in the movie “One Way to Tomorrow”. Currently, she is acting as the main character in “Behind the Flames” which is a very successful series in Turkey.

Aybuke Pusat is an actress, ballerina and model. She won third place in Miss Turkey 2014. She started her career in 2014 with a supporting role and continued with these roles until 2017.  

She played a major role in “Promise” as a doctor Bahar, after this, she caught the attention of the producer and got a major role with the biggest production company for series and movies in Turkey “The Moon”.

This month her new series with Engin Ozturk on Netflix "50 Square Meters" became available. So who is your favourite actress?

Witten by - Noha Batayneh 

Edited by - Christeena George