İntikam: İyi Adam, Kötü Adam ve Gizli Düzen

İntikam: İyi Adam, Kötü Adam ve Gizli Düzen

Milliyet — January 2013
Interview by Asu Maro

In early 2013, Nejat İşler was appearing in İntikam as Rüzgar.

The role is useful because it places him in almost the opposite position from characters such as Selim in Barda or Ercüment Çözer.

Rüzgar is essentially a good man.

And İşler predicts something interesting:

the audience may become irritated with the good character while enjoying the bad ones.

That observation arrives years before his later statement:

“Seyirci kötüyü seviyor.”

The 2022 conclusion was already visible in 2013.

The Good Man Can Be Annoying

İşler describes Rüzgar as the only basically good person among characters full of secrets and manipulation.

But he does not romanticize him.

He jokingly calls him foolish because Rüzgar is unaware of what is happening around him.

The important thing is the audience reaction.

İşler expects viewers to become angry with the naïve good man and enjoy the morally darker characters instead.

This is an important early observation about popular storytelling.

Goodness Is Less Dramatic

Bad characters act.

Manipulate.

Plan.

Hide things.

Good characters can appear passive beside them.

That creates a strange narrative imbalance.

Morally, the audience may prefer goodness.

Dramatically, evil can be more interesting.

İşler recognizes the difference.

From Rüzgar to Ercüment

This creates an illuminating contrast.

Rüzgar:

good,

trusting,

slightly naïve.

Ercüment:

intelligent,

dangerous,

morally distorted.

Which character becomes culturally iconic?

Ercüment.

That fact alone supports İşler’s later observations about audience attraction to darkness.

The Actor Changes the Original Character

İşler also says he did not simply reproduce the corresponding character from the original version of the series.

He was trying to construct Rüzgar’s own internal world.

This is another example of a recurring acting principle.

Do not play only the function written on the page.

Build the person’s world.

Discipline Behind the Rebel Image

Perhaps the most revealing part of the interview concerns work.

Asked whether he is disciplined, İşler says he may actually be excessively disciplined.

He becomes angry with professional disorder.

This sharply contradicts the public mythology surrounding him.

Public Nejat:

unpredictable,

rebellious,

undisciplined.

Working Nejat:

expects discipline.

Public Disorder, Private Order

The same contradiction appears in his domestic life.

He says his home may become messy for a day or two, but eventually he becomes irritated and puts everything back in order.

Then comes a very revealing self-description:

beneath the external image is a hidden preference for discipline and organization.

This is one of the best examples of the gap between appearance and structure.

The “Arıza” Persona Is Incomplete

By 2013, İşler had already accumulated a reputation as:

difficult,

irregular,

slightly dangerous,

bohemian.

But the interview reveals someone who likes:

routine,

professional punctuality,

domestic order,

cooking,

private time.

Again, the public persona is not entirely false.

It is simply selective.

He Is Harder on Himself Than the Interviewer

İşler repeatedly describes himself with deliberately negative humor.

Boring.

Rough around the edges.

Not especially good.

This self-criticism is important because it prevents the interview from becoming a lifestyle profile built around celebrity charm.

He often damages his own mythology before somebody else can polish it.

“I Was Never a Good Man”

One of the stronger statements concerns morality.

İşler contrasts himself with his mother, whom he describes as naturally good.

He says he has always had a darker side and that much of his life has involved trying to reduce it.

This is particularly interesting beside his acting work.

Evil as Internal Possibility

Since Barda, İşler had argued that dark behavior should not be treated as something belonging only to monsters.

Here he applies a softer version of the same idea to himself.

He does not present goodness as an automatic identity.

It requires work.

The darker possibility exists inside ordinary people.

His Mother as Moral Reference

The interview repeatedly returns to his mother.

İşler says he resembles his father physically but his mother more in temperament.

As a child, he was irritated by how much she did for other people.

With age, he began to understand her better.

This becomes interesting when compared with his later philosophy of contribution.

2016 Looks Less Sudden

In 2016, İşler will say that he no longer wants to live only for himself.

That statement is often interpreted through his illness.

But this 2013 conversation provides another possible foundation.

He had already been reflecting on a mother whose life was structured around caring for others.

The post-illness philosophy may therefore combine mortality with older family models of responsibility.

Women Without the Womanizer Myth

The interview inevitably returns to women.

İşler clarifies a previous remark about loving many women at once.

He says he meant different forms of affection:

friends,

colleagues,

people he values.

Not simultaneous sexual relationships.

He also describes himself simply as someone who likes and trusts women.

This is another correction to the public mythology built around Kaybedenler Kulübü.

Kaan’s Shadow

By 2013, the Kaan Çaydamlı association was already strong.

Questions about women therefore did not arrive neutrally.

The fictional character had become part of the interviewer’s frame for the real actor.

İşler again has to separate himself from a role without pretending there is no overlap at all.

Domestic Nejat Returns

The conversation reveals a much more domestic person than his public image suggests.

He enjoys cooking.

He watches cooking programs.

He searches for recipes online.

He likes creating meals informally with whatever is available.

This is consistent with the 2012 Marie Claire interview.

The supposed nightlife rebel repeatedly describes a strong home-oriented side.

Marriage Is Possible, Not Planned

Asked about marriage and children, İşler avoids absolute declarations.

He says broad future statements are unreliable.

A person may arrive and change what seems possible.

His conditions are modest:

peace at home,

continued affection,

the ability to enjoy being together.

Again, this is far less ideological than the anti-marriage persona sometimes attached to him.

Solitude as Daily Pleasure

The interview also contains an early version of his mature solitude philosophy.

İşler says he enjoys spending time alone.

He has enough interests:

music,

films,

books,

internet,

games,

football,

food.

This is not despair.

It is self-sufficiency.

But Solitude Is Structured

His description of daily life is revealing.

Time alone does not mean staring at a wall.

It contains routines.

Reading.

Watching films.

Horse racing.

Football betting.

Okey.

Friends.

Food.

The day moves between solitude and social contact.

This is very close to the later MediaCat distinction.

Alone, but Not Isolated

The pattern visible in 2013 is:

comfortable alone,

but repeatedly returning to:

friends,

cafés,

games,

football,

shared meals.

The famous “loner” image is therefore already too simple.

Gümüşlük Is Already Everyday Life

The interview includes casual references to Gümüşlük as an established part of his life.

This is another important chronological correction.

The move associated with 2014–2015 was not the discovery of an entirely new place.

Gümüşlük already belonged to his geography.

Later in 2013, Asu Maro would describe İşler as deeply at ease there and increasingly uncomfortable with returning to Istanbul television production.

Gümüşlük Before the Health Crisis

This again weakens the simplistic story:

illness

→

escape to Gümüşlük.

The relationship with Bodrum/Gümüşlük was already long-established.

The illness later made the shift in priorities more dramatic.

Aging Enters the Body

İşler says he is forty-one and still able to play football for hours, but he also recognizes that he should not push his luck forever.

He even considers Pilates.

The tone is comic, but the theme is serious:

the body is beginning to require negotiation.

One Year Before the Health Crisis

Because the interview predates his major illness by roughly a year, these comments acquire retrospective weight.

But they should not be turned into foreshadowing.

There is no reason to read ordinary reflections on aging as prediction.

What they do show is that bodily limits had already entered his thinking.

A Useful Comparison with 2007

In the earlier Barda material, İşler is fascinated by dark human possibility.

In 2013, he describes his own moral life similarly:

there is a darker side,

and the task is to reduce it.

This is perhaps one reason he can approach morally ambiguous characters without treating them as alien species.

A Useful Comparison with 2012

The Marie Claire interview said:

public Nejat is not private Nejat.

This interview gives concrete evidence.

Public image:

chaotic.

Private reality:

likes order.

Public image:

constant nightlife.

Private reality:

cooking and solitary routines.

Public image:

womanizer.

Private account:

values peaceful domestic companionship.

The 2013 interview is almost a catalogue of mismatches.

A Useful Comparison with 2021

The contrast with the later Milliyet Sanat interview is especially strong.

In 2021, İşler will openly admit that he sometimes performs the rough Nejat İşler persona expected by others.

The 2013 interview shows the earlier stage:

the persona already exists,

but he is still mainly explaining why it is incomplete.

A Useful Comparison with 2022

The most important thematic continuity concerns goodness and evil.

2013:
The audience may become angry with the good man and enjoy the bad ones.

2022:
“The audience loves the bad guy.”

The later conclusion is already experimentally visible here.

Why This Interview Matters

The January 2013 Milliyet interview is valuable because it brings several apparently unrelated Nejat İşler themes into one place.

It shows:

• a disciplined professional behind the rebel image,
• a domestic and orderly person behind the bohemian image,
• a good character who may be less attractive to audiences than bad characters,
• a man comfortable with solitude but still embedded in social routines,
• Gümüşlük as an established part of life before the 2014 health crisis,
• an early awareness of aging,
• and a self-understanding in which goodness is something practiced rather than automatically possessed.

Perhaps its most important line of development leads forward to 2022.

Long before İşler said that audiences love villains, he had already noticed the problem while playing one of the rare uncomplicated good men in his career.

The dark-character phenomenon did not surprise him suddenly later.

He had been watching it happen for years.