The new Sandokan star is the first co-host of the 2026 Sanremo Music Festival. He is visibly excited, even if he tries to play it cool. He knows every Laura Pausini song by heart. And tonight, he will meet the original Sandokan himself.
More tanned than Carlo Conti, seated to his left, Can Yaman steps into the spotlight as the first co-host of the 2026 Festival di Sanremo. He scans the room, senses the seriousness of the atmosphere, and jokes that he is afraid he might start sweating. Then he gets straight to the questions.
The first is how he prepared for the experience.
“I prepared by not thinking about it,” he says. “Otherwise I would have gotten far too emotional. I’m scared, but I pretend to be relaxed. I have my own vulnerabilities, I just don’t show them. I’m filming a series in Spain, I got here at 2 a.m., I have no idea what I’ll be doing tonight, but I trust the artistic director and I hope I don’t mess things up.”
One thing is certain: he will not be singing. He made that clear to Conti the moment he was invited.
“If one day I play a character who has to sing, they’ll have to pay me very well.”
Another sure highlight of the evening is a full-circle television moment: for the first time, the new Sandokan, Can Yaman, will meet the legendary Sandokan, Kabir Bedi. An instant spectacle.
The occasion also gave him the chance to share a few hints about the second season of Sandokan.
“We were supposed to shoot it this summer, but now no one knows when it will happen. After the success of the first chapter, they want to improve it even more on a global level, and I imagine that will require a different kind of budget. I’d love to shoot three seasons back to back, because then you get older, you gain weight, and I’ll have to lose kilos all over again. I’m at 100 now, and I’ll need to get back down to 85.”
So his next set, after the Spanish action series, will be in Italy: Bro, as in brother, a 20-minute sitcom expected to run for around 40 episodes.
Asked about his love life, Yaman says he is single, then playfully asks the journalist who raised the question whether she has any candidates or suggestions for him. Carlo Conti comments that he is married, and Can fires back: “I’m sorry.”
When the subject turns to Laura Pausini, Yaman’s admiration is immediate.
“If I had been a singer in another life, I would have made the same choices she made. I know all of her songs.”
As for the music he listens to most, he says it is “the old songs, the ones that make you suffer, like Questo piccolo grande amore by Claudio Baglioni. And then the songs that in Turkey you weren’t allowed to listen to, because otherwise you could end up in prison. I won’t sing them, otherwise I’ll go viral and get arrested again.”
The remark inevitably brings the conversation back to what happened two months ago, when Yaman was held for 24 hours as part of an investigation into an alleged system involving drug trafficking and drug use in circles frequented by celebrities, journalists, and members of Istanbul’s high society.
Here, he is firm and brief:
“There was no case.”
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