Selahattin Içsel

Selahattin Içsel, born smack in the middle of Istanbul in 1901, was honestly one of those faces you’d recognize if you’ve ever stumbled across Turkish cinema from the ‘50s or ‘60s. He didn’t exactly chase fame or show up everywhere, but when he landed a role, you could count on something memorable. Take “Saka ile Karisik” from ‘65, for example—he brought this unfiltered energy that made even the simplest scene feel alive, almost like he was just riffing off real life instead of reading a script. And then there’s “Ala Geyik,” that movie from ‘59 which kind of hangs around in the collective memory of old-school Turkish film buffs. Içsel had this knack for slipping into roles that felt both ordinary and a little bit larger than life, like your favorite uncle who’s always got a weird story to tell. He wasn’t some Hollywood glamour type, but that’s exactly what made him stick out. By the time he did “Vesikali Yarim” in ‘68, his whole vibe—world-weary but sharp, a little gruff but not unkind—just fit perfectly with the bittersweet tone that Turkish dramas were all about back then. He lived and died in Istanbul, never really leaving his roots behind, and you can kind of see that in his work. There’s something grounded, unmistakably local about the way he carried himself on screen. By the time he passed in ‘74, he’d quietly carved out a spot in the golden years of Turkish cinema, leaving behind performances that still pop up in late-night reruns and nostalgia threads.