“Hey, they were in Game of Thrones”—Where else have you seen these 55 GoT cast members? (Part 2)

27) SIBEL KEKILLI

Shae loved Tyrion dearly, and when you love a Lannister, your life is always at risk. Shae was a survivor, a woman who was both loyal and dangerous to spurn, as Tyrion found out. Sibel Kekilli, a German actress of Turkish origin, played her with a romantic pathos and canny shrewdness we won’t soon forget.

Kekilli got her start in adult films, but made the leap into mainstream movies with her role in Head On, a Fatih Akin feature that won the Golden Bear for Best Picture at the Berlin Film Festival in 2004. Kekilli was awarded the prestigious German Lola Award for Best Actress, and went on win a Best Actress statue at the 2010 Tribeca Film Festival for When We Leave (photo below).

Kekilli’s movie credits include Winter Journey (2006), When We Leave (2010) and What a Man (2011). She also boasts a strong TV resume, with appearances on shows like Gier (2010), The Inspector and the Sea (2010), Tatort (2010-2017, below) and Bruder: Schwarze Macht (2017).

In an interview with Vulture, Kekilli reveals how thrilled she was when author George R.R. Martin praised her performance on Game of Thrones: “When I met George R.R. Martin for the first time, he said, ‘Oh Sibel, your Shae is better than my Shae.’ It was a really big honor when he told me that.”

We all know that Peter Dinklage (Tyrion) is a good guy, and as Kekilli tells Vulture, she loved doing so many scenes with him: “He (Dinklage) is always really sensitive, and he’s a really good colleague. I really like him. I really like his acting. By sensitive, I mean he was always taking care of others … Let me say it like this — he always acts with his eyes. He reacts when you act. That helps me a lot. He helped me a lot.”

If you’re a fan of Kekilli’s work, you can catch her in the TV series Bullets and the film Berlin, I Love You this year.