Biography
Cem Bender was born on 1 January 1965 in Trabzon. He graduated in architecture from Karadeniz Technical University and earned a master’s in urban and regional planning at Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University, then left that path for the stage and trained with Şahika Tekand’s Studio Oyuncuları.
His first film was Atıf Yılmaz’s Berdel in 1990, and his television career started with Sultan Makamı in 2003. Since then he has appeared in Karayılan, Muhteşem Yüzyıl as Mustafa Ağa, Gülperi as Seyit and the Netflix series Hakan: Muhafız. He also had long runs as Çelebi Kayabeyli in Alev Alev and Oltan Kaşifoğlu in Aldatmak. For Ömer ve Biz (2019) he won best actor awards at festivals in Antakya, Fantasporto and Kazan.
He has also worked on stage in plays from Waiting for Godot to Oedipus. In 2026 he joined atv‘s historical drama Aşk ve Taht.
