Meet Deniz Bulat | Actor

We had the good fortune of connecting with Deniz Bulat and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Deniz, we’d love to hear what makes you happy.
I’m my happiest when I feel productive within my field, because it keeps me creative. Although I’m primarily an actor, I’ve accumulated experience in the production side of the business as well. This has helped me remain active in the field even when I’m not an actor. Even when I’m not acting, being on set, surrounded by artists, and being a part of the development side of projects keeps me engaged in the field and creatively productive. When I say productive, I not only mean actively working, but also actively working on projects that I feel are representative of the kind of art I want to do. But all of that aside, ice cream gets the job done on a regular basis!

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
With everything I do I aim to create meaningful work that brings artists together and involve in work that represents people from different backgrounds. This is how I learn as an actor and human to be honest. I try to reflect this in my work. Öte is a great example of this type of work, it brought together people from so many different backgrounds behind the scenes and the content of the film also had to do with people from different backgrounds crossing paths. My work with Et Alia Theater company is the perfect example on how my work is heavily influenced by my international identity.

With some of my work what I aim to accomplish as an artist is very obvious, but with some work like the current project that I’m working on, it’s not as obvious. I am currently acting in a one woman in Turkey play called Tangled written and directed by Kadri Ozcan and produced by Theater Libra. Since it’s a one woman play, you might ask, “how does this project represent your aim to bring artists together and represent work from different backgrounds?” Tangled depicts a woman’s life story and in its essence it’s her freedom journey. I’m telling a very specific story, but within this story I hope that every woman in the audience can come on an hour-long journey with me and find a piece of themselves.

I’ve found that concentrating on the meaning behind everything I do and how each project contributes to my artistic goals have helped me feel driven in the past. However recently I’ve found there are going to be jobs that are not going to always match my specific goals, and that doesn’t mean it’s not for me or meaningful art. So it has been a struggle for me to find a balance between my personal artistic goals while still making room for other opportunities. A recent job opportunity has helped me understand that there are so many different ways that I can be a part of meaningful art, and I shouldn’t be so restrictive upon myself. Currently, I’m in a children’s musical. Initially I was surprised to be a part of a musical, and throughout the rehearsal process I found myself trying to find a place for this musical within my artistic goals. Now that the show opened and we are interacting with so many younger audiences, mostly elementary school level, I realized how special this job is for me as an artist even if it doesn’t directly relate to my artistic goals. With every show that we do we get the chance to interact with our young audience during and after the performance. Hearing their engagement in arts at an early age and seeing how excited they get watching us on the stage is truly inspiring. I’m grateful that I now have this opportunity to help make art accessible from a younger age; once upon a time that’s how I got passionate about theater. So I’m learning that it’s always best to keep the door open for new opportunities, especially when there’s so many new things to try and lovely projects to grow from.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
In the past few years, being Turkish but studying in New York, I found myself traveling a lot. No matter where I am hosting my friends, I try to integrate them into my daily life and give them an insight on my life on a regular basis. This is a great way to introduce my neighborhood to my friends and have them do things that they won’t be able to find on bucket lists or travel itineraries. And a great way for them to see the places that I might have mentioned before! That being said for first timers in any place, I don’t think they should run away from “tourist traps”. Recently over-popularized places have been labeled as “not cool”, but that’s not a good enough reason to skip over some iconic places, buildings and parks.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
The teams that I worked with thus far have all played an integral role in my life. I feel very lucky to have collaborated with artists who are welcoming to new ideas and value creating a safe environment that’s necessary to create art.

Et Alia Theater Company is a theater company founded and led by international women artists. I’m extremely thankful to have found this company and work alongside its core team members Ana Moioli, Giorgia Valenti, Maria Müller, and Luísa Galatti. I’m in the second half of college and even through the pandemic we’ve continued to create together. The international women identity of this company gave me a home-base and influenced the type of art I want to be a part of.

Invisible Disco Productions is an entertainment production company endeavoring to create work that values emerging artists and the ownership of their voices. I’ve been creating work in different mediums with its key members, Amelia Annen, Lauren Montes, and Thea Throndson. This company has supported my work not just in terms of acting, but encouraged me to write and direct and production coordinate a lot of the short films we’ve produced together.

I acted as the assistant director of production at Stonestreet Studios for about a year. This position taught me a lot about production crew and camera work, learning about the technical aspect of the work impacted my acting technique positively as well. During my time there through my manager Monique Ford I was introduced to Malik Isasis. Through this encounter I was given the opportunity to unit production manage my first feature film. Öte is written and directed by Esra Saydam and Malik Isasis and produced by Eda Çarıkçı. The film follows Lela, a Black woman from New York traveling alone through Turkey; in no rush to reach her destination, Lela is happily sidetracked by the chance encounters her journey provides. We shot for about a month in multiple cities in Turkey, but primarily Kars. Being on set with Eda, Esra, Malik was a very special experience and thanks to this very talented group’s support, I learned all the ins and outs of producing a film in a city I’ve never been to and I even got to act in this beautiful project. Öte is now an Official Selection at Tribeca Film Festival.

Website: https://www.denizbulat.com

Image Credits
Image credits Personal photo image credit: Angel: Dir. Amelia Annen, DoP: Benjy Berkowtiz Additional photos: Image 1: This Is Me Eating___: Dir: Debora Balardini, Photographer: Gabriela Amerth Image 2: Tangled: Dir: Kadri Ozcan Image 3: Angel: Dir. Amelia Annen, DoP: Benjy Berkowtiz Image 4: This Is Me Eating___: Dir: Debora Balardini, Photographer: Gabriela Amerth Image 5: Tangled: Dir: Kadri Ozcan Image 6: Enough About Love: Dir. Gary O. Bennett, DoP: Michael Munari Image 7: Öte: Dir. Malik Isasis & Esra Saydam, On Set Photographer: Didem Civginoglu