An actress who received a big break working alongside household names in a new TV drama has confessed she did not recognise them when filming first started.
Buket Komur appears in the Channel 4 Zombie drama Generation Z with Robert Lindsay and Anita Dobson, two of Britain’s best-known TV faces.
But Komur, a University of East Anglia (UEA) graduate from Hertfordshire, said she grew up watching Turkish TV shows so had not seen them in their famous roles.
“I got to have a chill and very personal introduction to them, working with them first-hand,” she said.
Lindsay is best known for his roles in sit-coms Citizen Smith and My Family, while Dobson memorably played Angie Watts in EastEnders.
Komur said she enjoyed learning from their “wealth of experience”.
Other big names in the show include Sue Johnston and Johnny Vegas.
Komur said she had dreamt of an acting career for as long as she could remember.
As a child, she was a “bookworm” who loved attending acting classes and workshops.
She enrolled on a joint honours degree in film studies and English literature at UEA in Norwich.
While studying, she often travelled between London and Norwich for acting classes and auditions.
Her first TV credit came in 2019 in ITV drama Honour.
She said the Covid pandemic, which hit during her final year at university, changed the auditioning process, making it “cut-throat” due to the sheer volume of people submitting tapes.
On her acting career, Komur said: “Figuring it out in your heart what you love about it is the most important thing, then just going for it.”
The first episode of Generation Z show aired on 27 October and the final part can be seen on Monday night.
Komur invited her childhood friends to watch the first episode with her, describing it as a “full-circle moment”.
She said: “It was nice to watch it with the people who knew I always wanted to do this.
“It’s quite overwhelming when you see yourself for the first time. It’s quite a vulnerable thing seeing all the work you’ve done.”