Game of Thrones star Sibel Kekilli talks playing Shae, discrimination facing Turkish women

Sibel Kekilli portrayed Shae, a prostitute turned nobel mistress, for four seasons on Game of Thrones. She and Tyrion Lannister fell in love, but Thrones being Thrones, he ended up killing her after she testified against him in court and slept with his father. Speaking to Variety, Kekilli talked about her enduring admiration for the character:

"She’s a complex character and a strong one. After my first audition, the writers changed Shae from how she is in the book, where she was more of a gold digger. But of course, because of where she comes from, she is a fighter. She’s always trying to survive, be it using her body or her brain. She’s not born with a silver spoon in her mouth. I like these types of characters that come from a broken past. She’s a survivor!"

Like most characters on Thrones, Shae had many layers, and like most actors on Thrones, being on the show gave a boost to Kekilli’s career.

But not everything in her life is sunshine and rainbows. Kekilli, who is German but born in Turkey, worked in the adult film industry before breaking into mainstream acting, and the attention brought by German tabloids reportedly caused friction within her family. She understandably didn’t want to give specifics about her family situation, but did make her opinion about discrimination in the context of Turkish culture known. “If you want to be a free woman, with a free will, if you want to live a life of freedom, you have to make a complete break with your culture,” she said. “I don’t know if you understand, because people from Europe or from other cultures are like: ‘You can leave your family…and still be in contact with them or with your culture.’ But in Turkish culture, in the Muslim culture, this doesn’t work. They will always think they own you.”

"I’m fighting for women’s rights…especially within the Muslim culture because, as a girl and as a woman, I’ve known this culture. People have been threatening me, insulting me…I’ve had death threats…but I think it’s my duty because I know this culture. Because I suffered a lot, I have to speak out. I have to say it! And if it can change just one life, then it’s worth it."

And the difficulties don’t end in Turkey. Although Kekilli lives in Germany now, problems of a different sort persist:

"They box you in….I’m not saying everyone in Germany is like that. But [racial stereotyping and discrimination] is something to be aware of…You have to say it loud, so that people start thinking about it. The funny thing is that while we were shooting “Game of Thrones,” Dan and David [D.B. Weiss and David Benioff, the showrunners] would keep telling me: ‘You are so German!’ And I was like: ‘nobody would say that to me in Germany!’"

We salute Kekilli for taking a stand. At the moment, she’s working on a Finnish-English political thriller called Bullets, and an anthology show called Berlin, I Love You, plus several projects “I can’t talk about…yet.”

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