Mehmet Kurtuluş

Mehmet Kurtuluş (born 27 April 1972) is a German actor of Turkish descent. He is best known for his work with German director Fatih Akin.

Kurtuluş was born in Uşak, Turkey, and moved at the age of 18 months to Germany, where he grew up with his brother, Tekin, in Salzgitter, Lower Saxony.

He performed several minor television roles in episodes of different TV shows and continued working in theater until his big-screen debut in his main role as the young Turkish boy Gabriel in Fatih Akın's film Kurz und schmerzlos (Short Sharp Shock). After his breakthrough he appeared in the successful TV mini-series Der Tunnel, of Roland Suso Richter, where he performed alongside Heino Ferch and Nicolette Krebitz. Doris Dörrie chose him for her sex comedy Naked. He went back to working in television with the love film Eine Liebe in Saigon (Love in Saigon) with Luxembourgian actress Désirée Nosbusch (to whom Kurtuluş is engaged).

Kurtuluş played the main detective role in six episodes of the cult German television series Tatort. He announced afterwards that he would be working on international projects. In 2014, he co-starred with Samuel L. Jackson & Ray Stevenson in the Finnish-British action thriller Big Game.

Television

• 1993 – Adelheid und ihre Mörder
• 1995 – SK Babies
• 1995 – Stars of the South
• 1996 – Double Employment
• 2001 – The Tunnel (TV mini-series)
• 2004 – Love in Saigon
• 2007–2012 – Tatort
• 2016 – Muhteşem Yüzyıl Kösem

Cinema

• 1996 – Getürkt
• 1998 – Short Sharp Shock (Kurz und schmerzlos)
• 2000 – Im Juli
• 2001 – Herz
• 2002 – Naked (de)
• 2004 – Lautlos
• 2004 – Head-On (Gegen die Wand)
• 2010 - Transfer
• 2014 – Big Game

• Roxborough, Scott (16 November 2011). "Til Schweiger to Return to German TV for Hit Series 'Tatort'". hollywoodreporter.com. 

• Locarno International Film Festival 1998: Best Actor for Short Sharp Shock
• Grimme-Preis 2001: Short Sharp Shock
• Grimme-Preis 2009: Tatort – Auf der Sonnenseite