Ölene Dek Sınıfımın Yanında Yer Alacağım

Ölene Dek Sınıfımın Yanında Yer Alacağım

Cumhuriyet — 31 January 2010

By the end of January 2010, Nejat İşler’s conflict with the television industry had become much larger than a personal dispute about leaving Kapalıçarşı.

Within the same week, he had already spoken about exhaustion, privacy and working conditions.

The Cumhuriyet interview goes further.

Here, İşler places those complaints inside a wider understanding of:

labor,

class,

property,

collective organization,

cinema,

theatre,

and the way celebrity journalism chooses which parts of a person to make visible.

The headline comes from his clearest statement of social identity:

“Ölene dek sınıfımın yanında kalacağım.”

For an actor increasingly treated by the press as a rebellious celebrity, the important category he chooses for himself is not celebrity at all.

It is class.

Ejder Kapanı and Justice

The interview begins with Ejder Kapanı.

İşler plays Ensar, a man driven by revenge after severe violence against his younger sister and what he understands as the failure of legal justice.

The role returns him to familiar territory.

Violence.

Punishment.

Law.

Moral limits.

These subjects had already been central to Barda.

But Ejder Kapanı places them closer to the relationship between the individual and the state.

Law and Conscience Are Not the Same

İşler distinguishes law from conscience.

The legal system exists as an institution.

But institutional justice does not automatically satisfy the moral experience of a victim.

That gap is where revenge narratives become possible.

This does not mean revenge becomes legitimate.

It means the character’s psychology cannot be understood without asking why institutional justice feels insufficient.

This again fits İşler’s acting method:

understand the logic before judging the character.

Property, Again

The interviewer reminds İşler that he had previously spoken against private property.

His answer is striking because he has recently bought a house in Bodrum.

He does not solve the contradiction by changing his philosophy.

Instead, he admits the contradiction.

He still says:

“Mülkiyet hırsızlıktır.”

Then jokes that by buying a house, he has himself participated in the thing he criticizes.

This is valuable because it prevents his philosophy from becoming a pure pose.

Ideals Meet Biography

A person can hold a principle and still fail to live perfectly according to it.

İşler does not pretend otherwise.

That makes the archive more interesting.

The point is not:

Nejat İşler never owned property.

He clearly did.

The point is:

ownership remained something he felt philosophically uncomfortable with.

Bodrum Before Gümüşlük

The interview also confirms that the movement away from Istanbul began before the later Gümüşlük period became central.

İşler says he does not imagine continuing to live permanently in Istanbul.

He is tired of what he describes as endless struggles over sharing and ownership in the city.

This again revises the simplified chronology.

Gümüşlük does not suddenly appear after the 2014 illness.

The geographical desire to create distance from Istanbul already exists.

Leaving Istanbul Is Not Leaving Work

As in later interviews, the distinction is important.

İşler does not say:

I want to stop acting.

He says:

I want another structure for living and working.

Cinema can continue.

Theatre can return.

The city and television machine are negotiable.

The profession is not necessarily the problem.

Eight Hours Means Eight Hours

The most important labor section returns to television.

İşler states very concrete conditions.

Five working days.

Two days off.

An eight-hour working day, with limited overtime.

He says he had discussed such expectations with the producer of Kapalıçarşı before entering the project.

This is significant.

The complaint is not vague.

It is about measurable working time.

From Celebrity Complaint to Labor Standard

The distinction becomes sharper here than in almost any other early interview.

He is not saying:

I personally get tired easily.

He is saying:

people should not be expected to work without humane limits.

That moves the issue from personality to labor rights.

Sine-Sen and Biroy

İşler also explicitly identifies himself as an active member of Sine-Sen and the actors’ professional organization Biroy.

This matters because celebrity reporting often describes his conflicts as individual rebellion.

His own framing is collective.

The problem is not just:

Nejat İşler versus producer.

It is:

workers versus an unhealthy production structure.

The Invisible Set Worker

He gives an example from set labor.

If there is no available truck driver, another crew member may be asked to drive a vehicle that is not their responsibility.

Why?

Because the actual driver needs rest.

The problem is created upstream:

insufficient staffing,

insufficient rest,

continuous production pressure.

This is one of the strongest pieces of evidence that his criticism extends beyond actors.

Celebrity Gives Him More Protection

An established actor can refuse.

A hairdresser.

Driver.

Lighting worker.

Assistant.

Costume worker.

They may have much less bargaining power.

That gives İşler’s refusal another dimension.

His visibility allows him to make a labor problem visible that others may not be able to publicize safely.

“Köle Gibi”

His language about production conditions is intentionally harsh.

He rejects people being worked as if they were slaves and says he will stay away from television series until conditions improve.

The metaphor is rhetorical.

The underlying claim is concrete:

continuous work without meaningful rest is unacceptable.

Cinema Has an End

Why cinema instead?

Because the project ends.

İşler says a film may require two or three months.

Then it is finished.

This suits him.

He jokingly defines himself as someone suited to shorter work.

Again, the concept of a finite project becomes crucial.

The Structure Matters More Than the Medium

This reinforces the chronology we have already built.

Television:

potentially endless.

Cinema:

defined endpoint.

The later digital-platform return becomes easy to understand.

Once serial storytelling gains a clear endpoint, much of the original objection weakens.

Theatre as Ownership of Responsibility

The theatre section is particularly important.

İşler says he has been away from the stage since 2002 and wants to return.

His explanation of the difference between theatre and film is revealing.

On a film set, the director ultimately carries much of the responsibility.

On stage, the actor cannot hide in the same way.

The success or failure belongs more directly to the person performing.

This is another form of autonomy.

No Channel, No Large Capital

He also emphasizes the attraction of theatre’s smaller structure.

No television channel.

No large industrial capital.

Friends working together.

The stage becomes a space where responsibility is more direct.

This resembles his older affection for Tezgâh and later preference for smaller production environments.

The Same Scale Keeps Returning

Across very different activities, İşler seems drawn toward structures where the relationship between action and consequence is visible.

Tezgâh.

Theatre.

Gümüşlükspor.

Independent films.

Producing.

Large anonymous systems make him uncomfortable.

Smaller structures make responsibility easier to see.

Directing Is Already in the Future

Asked whether he may direct, İşler says he does not yet consider himself sufficiently competent in cinema.

But he has stories he wants to tell.

Perhaps directing may come later.

This is extremely useful when compared with 2025.

Fifteen years later, he will again talk about a project he may direct.

The desire did not suddenly appear in late career.

It had been waiting.

Competence Before Status

His answer is also characteristic.

He does not say:

I am a successful actor, therefore I can direct.

He distinguishes fields.

He feels qualified to speak about theatre because he trained in it.

Cinema directing requires another level of competence.

That respect for craft complicates the casual rebel image.

Fenerbahçe as Continuity

The conversation briefly moves to Fenerbahçe.

İşler describes himself as a committed supporter and even imagines playing Lefter Küçükandonyadis in a film.

Football, at this point, is still primarily fandom.

Five years later, it will become administration and community work through Gümüşlükspor.

This small section therefore helps document another evolution.

From Supporter to Organizer

The sequence becomes:

2010: football as identity and fandom.

2011: football as personal competition.

2015–2016: football as organization and social responsibility.

The subject grows with him.

The Media Chooses the Bar

Perhaps the interview’s sharpest media observation comes when İşler compares two kinds of public appearance.

He can participate visibly in a DİSK event.

That may receive little attention.

But if he leaves a bar, cameras appear and the event becomes news.

This is central to the construction of the Nejat İşler persona.

Celebrity Is Selective Editing

The public image is not made from everything someone does.

It is made from what media systems repeatedly select.

Bar.

Alcohol.

Relationship.

Conflict.

These become visible.

Union activity.

Labor rights.

Class solidarity.

These can remain almost invisible.

Then audiences conclude that the visible material describes the complete person.

The “Black Sheep”

The interviewer asks whether İşler is the industry’s black sheep.

His answer refuses the mythology.

“Ben sadece artistim.”

Again, the pattern from 2003 returns.

Other people offer the larger identity.

He chooses the smaller profession.

Leading Man → Rebel → Artist

The sequence is revealing.

2003:

You are the new leading man.

Answer:

I am an actor.

2010:

You are the black sheep.

Answer:

I am only an artist.

The public identity grows more dramatic.

His self-description remains simpler.

Class Identity

Then comes the statement that gives the interview its title.

His grandfather worked at Feshane.

His father worked in a factory.

He says he knows where he stands:

with his class.

This is one of the few moments in the archive where he gives himself a collective identity without immediately undermining it.

Fame Does Not Erase Origin

That matters.

Celebrity can produce social mobility very quickly.

Income changes.

Housing changes.

Public status changes.

But İşler insists that his social memory remains tied to workers.

That continuity helps explain why television-set conditions become more than personal inconvenience.

Tezgâh as Safe Harbor

The interview ends by returning to Tezgâh, his Galatasaray bookshop and café.

The interviewer asks whether it is a safe harbor.

İşler agrees.

He says it was not opened primarily to make money.

It is a place where he can do what he wants and feel peaceful.

This description makes Tezgâh much more important than a celebrity side business.

A Small Autonomous Zone

Tezgâh represents almost everything he wants from work:

small scale,

books,

friends,

choice,

less hierarchy,

less industrial pressure.

It is an early physical version of the life philosophy later associated with Gümüşlük.

Before Gümüşlük, There Was Tezgâh

This changes another simplistic narrative.

People often interpret Gümüşlük as İşler’s first attempt to create distance from celebrity life.

But Tezgâh already served a similar psychological function.

A space inside the city where the celebrity machine had less control.

A Useful Comparison with 25 January

The Milliyet interview six days earlier is more personal.

Leaving Kapalıçarşı.

Rumors.

Privacy.

Wanting to leave the “piyasa.”

The Cumhuriyet interview explains what “piyasa” means more concretely.

Working hours.

Labor structure.

Capital.

Media selection.

Property.

A Useful Comparison with Cinemania

Cinemania adds anger and urgency.

Set conditions are unbearable.

Cumhuriyet gives the argument its political and organizational structure.

Together, the three January 2010 records are best understood as one cluster.

They should remain separate because each reveals a different layer:

Milliyet: personal withdrawal.

Cinemania: industrial exhaustion.

Cumhuriyet: labor and class analysis.

A Useful Comparison with 2007

The newly recovered 2007 Ulusoy interview makes the chronology even stronger.

By 2007:

• money was already a tool for buying time,
• property was already suspect,
• television was already primarily economic,
• fame was already uncomfortable.

By 2010, these ideas have moved from preference into conflict.

He is no longer merely describing what he wants.

He is refusing conditions he does not want.

A Useful Comparison with 2025

The longest professional arc is striking.

2010:
Large production structures exploit time.

2025:
The producer should be the person who builds the structure.

The later move into production can therefore be read partly as the constructive answer to an old problem.

If bad structures exist, eventually help build better ones.

Why This Interview Matters

The 31 January 2010 Cumhuriyet interview is one of the strongest early documents in the Nejat İşler archive.

It shows that his conflict with television was not merely a celebrity tantrum or personal problem with one production.

He understood it through:

working hours,

union organization,

crew safety,

collective labor rights.

At the same time, the interview brings together several other themes that will define the next fifteen years:

• suspicion of property,
• movement away from Istanbul,
• preference for finite cinema projects,
• desire to return to theatre,
• early interest in directing,
• football,
• dissatisfaction with celebrity journalism,
• attachment to working-class origins,
• Tezgâh as a small autonomous space.

Perhaps the most important contrast is between the public label and his chosen identity.

The media asks whether he is the industry’s black sheep.

He answers:

“Ben sadece artistim.”

Then, when asked where he actually belongs, he gives a much firmer answer:

with his class.