I first heard of Boran Kuzum a little over a year ago. It was late 2023 and I was on the way to Istanbul to interview him and the rest of the cast of a new Turkish epic, Bihter. Amazon Studios was footing the bill and, truth be told, I was probably more excited to discover Istanbul than to meet the cast of the film.
For context, I had been working in the film industry for the better part of a decade, and the glamour of the whole ‘film junket’ thing had started to lose its shine on me. Jaded? Perhaps, but I think the industry’s increasing lack of authenticity was grinding on me. More guff than guts, and actors increasingly chasing followers over filmmaking.
A few days before I flew out, I asked one of my Turkish friends in Dubai if she knew who Boran Kuzum was. She laughed, “Everyone in Turkey knows Boran Kuzum. We’re obsessed with him.”
Sitting in the backseat of a taxi as I pulled out of the airport, it didn’t take long until I saw, one, two, five, ten posters of Bihter plastered on every bus bench, delivery truck, billboard, building—everything that had a flat surface on which you can stick something. The back of tour guide pamphlets that were littered throughout the Hilton hotel’s lobby, there was the poster.
The next day was the kind of day in Istanbul I have been looking forward to. Chauffeur-driven through the historical, labyrinthian streets out towards a palatial estate planted on a cliff with a sweeping view of the famed Bosphorus Bridge.
It’s where the film would premiere later that evening, inside a makeshift tent housing a large, expectant audience. It was like that scene in Notting Hill, when Hugh Grant finds himself inside the Ritz waiting to interview Julia Roberts. I sat in a waiting room, with several other journalists, all eagerly awaiting the arrival of the film’s leading man. Just a boy, sitting in a waiting room, asking myself why they all love him… Yes, I’d done my homework, but still, I didn’t know enough to know what was hype and hyperbole; the person behind the poster.
Admittedly, everyone else’s nerves and excitement couldn’t help but brush off on me. When Kuzum entered my friend’s previous comments played out in front of me. With a Clark Gable-esque mustache and a Bowie-circa-Ziggy-Stardust approved sweater, he glided through the hallway of the cavernous dining room and sat down in front of the window. As it turns out, Kuzum knows film. Like, really knows film.
As we deep dive into our favourite cinematic references, he revealed that one of his favourite films is Paul Thomas Anderson’s Magnolia (1999), and that he has an in-depth knowledge of niche Austrian film director Michael Haneke’s work. This was no fluffy chat with the latest male heartthrob off of cinema’s star-pushing conveyor belt, but rather a serious, dedicated artist.
Fast forward to 2025, and Kuzum calls me from the airport lounge in Istanbul. He’s on his way back to Milan, where he’d been for fashion week prior to his photoshoot with Esquire in Dubai. After that he’s heading to Copenhagen to oversee a film he’s producing—a professional first but, in his words, “definitely not the last”. Then he’ll head back home to Turkey for yet another project. There are times when I feel like I travel a lot for work, and then you spend five minutes catching up with an in-demand film star and you realise that you’re embarrassingly uninitiated to the world of air miles.
“Producing has been so much fun,” Kuzum says, unable to hide his excitement. “For the first time, I was the one picking out actors, choosing music, and doing so many different roles than what I’m used to. It was nice getting to be on the other side of creativity, and I can’t wait to do more of it.”
At just 32 years old, he’s been at the top of his game for the better part of a decade, so although producing may technically be a step into foreign territory, the world of showbiz is anything but.
“I grew up far from the city, deep in nature outside Ankara, where I could see the sunset and the sunrise every day. It sparked my imagination. And when you come from a small place, you dream of getting somewhere big. When I was thirteen, I performed in my very first play,” he pauses, “I still remember the feeling of walking out in front of the audience, and the excitement I felt in that moment was unlike anything else I’d ever had in my life. That’s when it hit me that this was something I wanted to do.”
Like fertilizer for a garden, this abrupt, adolescent thirst for the performing arts was satiated with a heavy diet of classic films and continuous daydreaming while out in the countryside. But the one performance that made a lasting imprint, that showed what was possible in front of the screen, was Al Pacino’s Oscar-winning role in Scent of a Woman (1992).
“That film came out the year I was born, and I remember watching it as a kid and thinking, okay, maybe I won’t be as good as he is, but I can give it a go,” he says, if not a bit distantly, like reliving the memory of seeing it for the first time. But despite this electrical shock of inspiration, the system in which he was raised made it clear that getting an education was of the utmost importance. So down the tunnel he leapt. A year spent studying economics; yawn. Then a brief stint studying architecture. More creative than economics? Sure (depends on who you ask, I suppose). But clearly, this sudden redirection had reduced the sweeping flames of excitement to a flickering match in the wind. And, historically speaking, betting on an acting career doesn’t normally tend to fall in one’s favour. So perhaps the craziest result of everything wasn’t when Kuzum decided to quit everything to pursue acting full time, but rather the unwavering support he received from his parents.
“I felt yanked into a system that I didn’t want to be in,” he admits. “I was nervous about telling my family about my decision to quit economics, to quit architecture, and to pursue acting full time. So when I finally revealed the big news, instead of resistance, they insisted on helping me prepare for the acting school examination,” he says, before pausing, “but looking back at it now, I can’t believe I had the courage to drop everything and do it.”
After graduating from the Istanbul University State Conservatory, which is known for its heavy focus on the arts (and is notoriously hard to get into), his career took off seemingly overnight.
He quickly landed his first role. Then another. It didn’t take long until, still in his early twenties, Boran Kuzum was becoming a recognisable name in his homeland, and nearly an entire decade before the Bihter premiere, he was already seeing himself on billboards plastered around the country. His profile would begin to transcend borders off the back of the wildly successful drama The Magnificent Century—with fanbases growing in the Middle East and Europe.
How did he find the experience, and manage to continually cope with it? As, a year-and-change on, it’s still going on, and doesn’t appear to be slowing down.
“Of course I’m grateful, and it’s an amazing feeling when you’ve dedicated so much time to creating something like a movie or series and you see it being recognised by an audience and out in public. That’s the goal of what we are doing and what I want to achieve. But seeing my face everywhere? It’s weird. It gives me anxiety,” he says cautiously. “I just try to focus on the healthy criticism from people who I know and whose opinions I care about.”
His first moment of unexpected fandom came in, of all places, St. Petersburg, Russia.
One morning after a five-day shooting schedule, a 25-year-old Kuzum received a call from the hotel reception, which he quickly dismissed as someone from production demanding something that could easily wait. So he went back to bed. Several hours later, as he sleepily stepped outside his room, he was greeted by an onslaught of hysterical fans. This was, as he confesses incredulously, the last place he ever expected something like this to happen. And it resulted in that familiar adrenaline dump experienced by so many who decide to climb the mountain.
“People told me they were literally teaching themselves Turkish because of my character in the show The Magnificent Century. They were speaking to me in broken Turkish, and, of course, it was flattering but,” he pauses, “I just remember instantly feeling so down. I walked back to my room and was like ‘what am I going to do now?’” In the same breath he tells me that the day after the premiere of Bihter in Istanbul, he left Turkey. Why? He just couldn’t deal with seeing his face everywhere he looked. But as a famous chef once mused: “The only painkiller known to man is hard work,” and so he retreated, but not into obscurity, but back into the crucible of his own imagination, specifically, into the new world of producing.
“Fun. Fulfilling. Satisfying,” he gushes over his new Istanbul-based project which will then have a screening in Copenhagen. “When you are an actor, you sign a piece of paper, and then you go and you play the part. Yes, you create something together with the director, but you’re never really in control. But, this time, I just felt so in charge. I was calling up agents of actors who I wanted; I went to different clothing stores to get the styling right for each character; I met with musicians whose music I wanted and signed deals with different artists; I even did the administrative stuff. I was organising the hotels, food, drivers.”
After pre-production finished, it was off to the airport yet again to make the film festival rounds.
First Canada. Then Estonia. Then Denmark. Then back to Turkey. And, this month, he’ll begin work on yet another, even more ambitious project (which remains nameless) with a new digital platform that is making its debut in Dubai, although any more details than that he can’t give. “It can all get tiring, but I’m the kind of person who needs to be busy.”
Every salute he can make at the altar of creativity is one to be cherished, and after more than a decade in the spotlight, he’s finally starting to embrace and accept the public reactions to his craft as an artist. And as for producing, is this a new hat he intends to wear more frequently now that he has a taste for it? In short: yes. And directing? Well…never say never.
“I’ll admit, it’s a nice bonus to get calls from people who dismissed me years ago, who are now begging to work with me,” he chuckles. “But nothing beats getting to invite my parents to a premiere. Getting to share these moments with them is, to me, the definition of success.”
With a plate full of work and an even bigger backpack full of ambitions, what does the rest of 2025 look like for one of Turkey’s most bankable crossover movie stars?
“After this call, I actually have to do an audition, so I’ll have to find a quiet area somewhere in the airport lounge,” he laughs. “Also, I should probably go home to Istanbul at some point in the near future, if only so I can get some new clothes and luggage. Right now, that’s the biggest problem I have to deal with.” Authenticity? Check.
Photography by Vladimir MartÍ / Styling by Kim Payne / Hair Stylist: Jean Luc Amarin / Art Director: Oscar Yáñez / Senior Producer: Steff Hawker; Fashion Coordinator: Ali Farouk / Lighting Assistant: Scar Salario / Shot on location at: Jumeirah Dar Al Masyaf
