Sibel Kekilli

Sibel Kekilli is a German actress born on 16 June 1980. She gained public attention after starring in the 2004 film Head-On. For her performances in Head-On and the 2010 film When We Leave, she won two Lolas, the most prestigious German film award. Beginning in 2011, she became more widely known for her role as Shae in the HBO series Game of Thrones.

Kekilli was born in Heilbronn, Baden-Württemberg, West Germany. Her parents emigrated from Turkey in 1977, and she described them as having a modern and open attitude. After finishing school with excellent grades at age 16, Kekilli entered a 30-month combined training program to become a certified public administration specialist at the local city administration.

After completing her training, she worked as an administrative assistant at Heilbronn city hall for two years. She then relocated to Essen, where she worked in various positions, including as a bouncer, cleaner, waitress, nightclub manager, and saleswoman. In 2002, while at a shopping mall in Cologne, she was noticed by a casting director and won the lead role in Head-On against 350 other applicants. Released in 2004, the film was a major success, and Kekilli received the 2004 Bambi prize for best shooting star.

Kekilli went on to star in the 2006 Turkish film Home Coming, which earned her the Best Actress award at the Antalya Golden Orange Film Festival. That same year, she appeared in the drama The Last Train. In 2009, she played the lead role in When We Leave, winning the Lola for Best Actress in 2010. She was also cast as Shae in HBO's Game of Thrones, an adaptation of George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire novels.

In 2011, Kekilli joined the long-running German crime series Tatort as permanent cast member and investigator Sarah Brandt. She remained with the franchise for 14 feature-length episodes before departing in 2017 to seek new creative changes.

Beyond her acting career, Kekilli supports the organization Terre des Femmes in its campaign against violence against women. She has delivered notable public speeches on the topic, including a 2015 address at Schloss Bellevue that earned her the title of Author of Freedom from the Friedrich Naumann Foundation. As of 2015, Kekilli resides in Hamburg. She married German photographer Andreas Daurer in 2026.