Kaan Tasaner, who the Indian audience popularly know as Erdogan, is a popular Turkish actor who has captured the attention of a lot of Indians through his show, Fatmagul on the popular GEC Zindagi. He was in Mumbai to be part of the Jio MAMI 18th Mumbai Film Festival with Star and joined us for a quick conversation about his series and Turkish television.

Kaan Tasaner - Pandolin.com

Kaan Tasaner

Fatmagul is an extremely popular show here, are you aware about your popularity in India?

As far as I understand we really are extremely popular in India and the TV series are well liked by the Indian audience. Apparently, we had a group that followed us at the airport, which I wasn’t aware at the time. But everybody here is extremely respectful and helpful.

Have you seen or heard about Indian TV and shows?

We work in harsh conditions, so it is hard to keep up. I even have a hard time seeing and following movies or series that are made in our own country. India maybe huge in terms of exporting content to Europe and other countries, but unfortunately we don’t get much of Indian television in Turkey. As we are new to Indian television, similarly Indian television is new to Turkey.

We hear that the TV industry in Turkey is as big as the one in India, what are the kinds of themes that are generally covered on television?

We have stories about everything, there are a lot of TV shows and series running at the moment and they cover every possible theme. Indians are now watching around three Turkish series and I think Kuzey Güney (which I am part of) will be added to this list. Right now there are about 30 to 40 series that are being broadcast and they have a variety of themes, from drama to comedy; everything is being covered on Turkish television.