Meet Derya Celikkol | Actor & Production Designer

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

Hi Derya, how has your work-life balance changed over time?
When I first graduated from NYU and started to work as an actor, deciding to take time off from being in New York to see my family in Turkey was such a stressful decision for me. I often felt like I could miss the one chance that would make my career if I wasn’t available to work in New York even for a short amount of time. This trend continued when I started to work as a production designer too. I wasn’t able to make any trip plans with my family or friends because I often got jobs last minute and I didn’t want to commit to a personal plan knowing that I would cancel it in a heartbeat if a job came along. Over the last few years, the importance of my personal life started to weigh heavier. The reason for this is probably a mixture of being at a comfortable place in my career, getting older and having more impactful personal life moments that show me how important it is to give myself time away from work. Everyone is built different and everyone has fluctuations in their work-life balances over the years but I really wish I didn’t put so much pressure on myself to be available for work when I was younger and enjoyed my time off even more with my friends and family.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
My favourite thing about acting is the chance go into the mind of a person completely different than myself and live their truth. Constantly using the muscle of imagining myself in someone else’s shoes in different circumstances than me has made me a very emphatic and flexible person in life. I believe that life is all about the love you give to others and I have been getting better at this through acting since working on a character helps me see different perspectives and choices and I then need to make these perspectives and choices my own. I love observing people and picking up on their speech patterns, idiosyncrasies, their powers and weaknesses. Being introverted, I have always been very observant and I believe this skill enables me to bring authentic intricacies to my characters that add a lot of life to them. I got to where I am today through a lot of hard work both in my craft and in myself, also with a little bit of luck. It wasn’t easy but it was fun and I tried to learn from every part of the unpaid gigs, overnight, overtime shoots, unsavoury directors/producers, difficult scene partners and hundreds of rejections. I often ask myself if this pursuit is giving me passion and fire or just pure sadness and a feeling of defeat. So far it has been an fiery journey full of passion and excitement and hopefully it will get bigger and brighter.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
The two people who deserve the biggest shoutout for my career are my parents, Mursit and Meltem Celikkol. They gave me their unconditional love and unwavering support every step of my education and work life. It must have been pretty difficult for them to hide their worries about my future when I told them, very adamantly, that I wanted to pursue acting as my sole career. They saw the fire behind my eyes, my dedication and love for theatre from my performances in school and they never questioned if this choice was the best for me or not. It still amazes me how much they trusted me when I was 18 years old. Their continuous support and trust have always been the wind beneath my wings, giving me the confidence to go strongly towards anything I want to achieve.

Website: www.deryacelikkol.com

Instagram: celderikkolya