Oya Unustası

Unustası's parents originally settled in İzmir[6] before moving to Istanbul, where she was born. She is descended from immigrants from Thessaloniki and Bulgaria.[3][7]

Unustası has described her childhood years:

In primary school, I would draw my class teacher behind the examination papers and write poems for him. The little girl who always drew pictures, sang, imitated, heard music, danced, jumped on seeing an empty stage had to set a direction as she grew up. So I entered the conservatory flute department and started with the discipline until I graduated from university and graduated from the university."[2]

She studied at the Flute Department of Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University and trained under the Turkish actress Ayla Algan.[2][3] She preferred acting to music:

I was too young to set a direction. As I grew up and got to know myself, music became my inner world, and acting became my way of expressing life. My way of living is acting. My way of experiencing myself, others, human beings, feelings, beauty and pain. In short, my way of getting to know life. Actually, I cannot think of acting very differently from life. I think if a person should come to the best point he can come and move himself to the highest possible places in terms of performance. This has always been what I intended to do, and at this point acting came across. Acting is now something like the essence of my life. So I’m not looking as a profession. Acting as a tool, a way for me to be able to discover myself as a human and carry my awareness to the highest levels."[2]

Her first film was Losers' Club in 2010. She has since starred in Masum Değiliz and the television series Beyaz Karanfil, Sevdaluk, İzmir Çetesi and Diriliş: Ertuğrul, in the latter playing the role of Sügay Hatun.[3] In 2017 she acted the part of Olivia in the play Çok Satanlar.[8] She currently stars in Hercai, a series broadcast on ATV.[9]

She likes to wear what she thinks suits her and has said, "Actually, every woman dresses for her day. Some days, decorations come for hours, and some days, they have nothing to do. I like to dress more sports, comfortable and plain."[2]