The Turkish soap opera industry is about to become as well known as the hair transplant industry outside the Ottoman country.
Istanbul, where most of these soap operas are filmed, has become the second largest audiovisual producer and exporter in the world, behind only the United States.
The expansion of these series has turned their protagonists into global stars, as happened more than three decades ago with the cast of Venezuelan serials such as
Cristal
or
La Dama de Rosa.
It has been a long time, but something has not changed: the classic roles of the burly heartthrob and the beautiful young woman who would be worth a runway model.
It is not something that has emerged from one day to the next, and the first big Turkish success among the Spanish audience took place in 2017 with the disembarkation of the muscular Can Yaman.
Today the phenomenon is monopolized by two series,
Mujer
en Antena 3 and
Love is in the Air
in Telecinco.
The first recounts the vicissitudes of a woman, Bahar, in a dramatic tone, and the second, much more casual, the romance between Eda and Serkan.
Both gather more than two million viewers in an ascending progression since they began to air.
In social networks, the success of these soap operas is even greater, with a community of faithful followers like few with both the fictional product and the real life of those who embody their cast.
Among all the stars of the Turkish factory, Hande Erçel, Eda in
Love is in the Air
stands out especially
.
In the series, this 27-year-old actress plays a young flower seller trying to pay for her college studies and ends up falling in love with a seemingly insensitive millionaire.
Although she had enormous success with another series,
Hayat: Amor sin Palabras, it
has been the soap opera that occupies
Telecinco's
prime time
three nights a week that has catapulted her to world stardom.
She was Miss Turkey in 2012 and has recently been chosen as the most beautiful woman in the world by Top Beauty World, awards given by three of the most recognized Hollywood plastic surgeons.
Her past as a model meant certain obstacles for her to establish herself as a performer, but since her debut as an actress in 2013, she has won two Golden Butterfly awards, which in Turkey reward the most important works in film, television and music.
He exceeds 19 million followers on Instagram, and after the death of his mother due to cancer, he organizes campaigns to raise funds for the fight against this disease.
Personally, he broke off his last relationship last August.
It was with Murat Dalkılıç, a well-known Turkish singer as well as an actor, with whom she began dating in 2017. Before, she had dated two other well-known Turkish actors, but currently and despite the incessant rumors that appear in the press, she does not date her soap opera companion, Kerem Bürsin, the Turkish heartthrob ready to dethrone Can Yaman.
Bürsin, 33, was born in Istanbul but spent part of her childhood in the United States.
His command of English allowed him to get roles in some movies and series, such as the production of series B
Sharktopus,
where he had to eliminate a monster that was half shark half octopus.
Since he returned to Turkey he has not stopped working, and the sum of his muscles - in the wake of Can Yaman - and his white skin and almost red hair, have made him sweep as a soap opera heartthrob, but it has been his role as the millionaire Serkan Bolat in
Love is in the Air
has catapulted him to international fame.
He is followed by more than 6.6 million on Instagram, where he shares the fashion campaigns in which he participates, as well as social awareness campaigns on issues such as violence against women.
Also photos with his love on the screen, Eda, not in real life.
His best known partner to date has been the actress Serenay Sarıkaya, with whom he began in 2015 and broke up in 2019. Last year there were reconciliation rumors, but those that place the actor with Demet Ozdemir, another of the great stars of Turkey, and who played Can Yaman's girlfriend in the series
Dream Bird.
The pioneer Yaman continues to triumph in series such as the romantic comedy
Marriage by surprise,
which is broadcast by Divinity, as well as in all kinds of advertising campaigns and on the networks, where he accumulates 8 million followers.
Personally, he has found love with Italian sports journalist Diletta Leotta.
He led the way in a genre whose success has not gone unnoticed by a giant like Netflix, which has signed Özge Özpirinçci, Bahar in
Woman.
It will be a
science fiction
thriller
, but shot entirely in Turkey and with Turkish actors.
The current momentum of Ottoman fiction can be felt in its digital impact.
In Spain, viewers make the contents of these series become the most talked about on social networks such as Twitter.
The premiere of
Marriage by surprise
on February 8 was the second most talked about television content of the day.
Regarding
Love is in the Air,
it rose to the first position of the most commented on Twitter, with more than 35,000 messages from 34,000 unique users who could not help but comment on the love between Eda and Serkan.
