El Gouna Film Festival: Between the Screen and the Soul, The Journey of Kaan Urgancıoğlu

 

Turkish actor Kaan Urgancıoğlu arrived at El Gouna Film Festival with the calm charisma that has made him a household name across the Arab world, but behind the stardom is a story rooted in heritage, personal discovery, and a profound relationship with his craft. What many people may not know is that he has Syrian roots through his maternal grandfather. “My mother’s father came from Syria to Izmir,” he says. “He is like the hero of our family. We talk about him all the time. Mehmed would do this, Mehmed would do that.” Though he only knew him for a few years, he left a lasting impression: “He was my favorite character even in those three years. He became a doctor in Istanbul and later one of the first anesthesiologists in the United States.”

This quiet bridge between Turkey and the Arab region shaped him more deeply than he initially realized. “There are so many similarities, when people here watch Turkish series, it feels like their own stories. Even the Egyptian film I saw last night, I felt like I knew the characters. I understood the humor.” That sense of familiarity is mirrored in the audience’s relationship with him. “It’s like I’m living someone else’s life, it doesn’t feel real,” he reflects gently. “Because every few weeks we’re in your homes and in your living rooms, you feel like you know us.”

His success, however, was not immediate, and it wasn’t meant to be. “I wished not to be famous early. It’s not a blessing to be famous without being successful or knowing the craft. In that sense, I feel lucky.” Before acting, he studied marketing and finance, unsure of his long-term calling. “I told myself, if I want to quit, I can quit now. If I want to really do this, I should decide. That uncertainty made me face the fact that I actually want to do this as a profession.” He eventually trained in New York, an experience that shaped his identity as much as his technique. “More than acting technique, the life there, going as a Turkish guy with no expectations around me, I had to find my own existential reason.”

Even today, what guides him most is meaning. “The story is what matters. The character is my duty, we can always work on that, but whose story is this and what is it admitting? If it’s just a story to sell, we have so many stories.” His theatrical discipline prepared him for the intensity of Turkish television. “You need a crazy character to carry on and a great willpower to work and work and work,” he jokes. His breakout as Emir in Kara Sevda is one of the region’s most talked-about villain portrayals, though he never saw him that way. “I never thought Emir was the villain. My inner motivation was that he loves Nihan more than Kemal. I was always rooting for him.”

Acting, for him, is both a mirror and a weight. “As an actor you face the dark side of yourself, maybe you heal things you wouldn’t need to heal otherwise. So acting heals. But it’s also exhausting… you need to heal from it.” The only way he remains grounded is by fiercely protecting his real life. “Everybody needs a castle. It’s my job to be an actor, but my private life is my private life. It feeds me.”

In El Gouna, as stories from across the region intersect on screen and off it, Kaan Urgancıoğlu's presence is a reminder that some careers are not built on momentum, but on intention, and that behind the characters beloved by millions is a man still searching for meaning, honesty, and connection, both to his craft and to the people watching him.