Zaten Geçerken Uğramıştı

Zaten Geçerken Uğramıştı

Milliyet — 7 September 2013
By Asu Maro

This is not a conventional question-and-answer interview.

It is something almost more valuable for an archive.

Asu Maro looks back across years of conversations with Nejat İşler and tries to explain a pattern that has become impossible to ignore:

he keeps entering television,

and then leaving.

In September 2013, İşler had just left İntikam before its second season.

The immediate reason was reported as health problems.

But Maro’s larger argument is that leaving itself was not surprising.

Television had never become a permanent home for him.

It was somewhere he passed through.

The title captures the relationship perfectly:

“Zaten geçerken uğramıştı.”

He had only stopped by on the way.

Before the 2014 Health Crisis

The timing makes this record especially important.

It was published only months before İşler’s severe 2014 illness.

Yet almost everything later associated with his post-illness life is already visible:

• Gümüşlük,
• distance from Istanbul,
• discomfort with fame,
• selective television work,
• desire to write,
• preference for films,
• attraction to small-scale daily life.

The evidence therefore becomes difficult to ignore.

The health crisis did not create this life plan.

It accelerated one already under construction.

Gümüşlük Is Where He Looks Most Like Himself

Maro begins with an observation from that summer.

In Gümüşlük, İşler appears unusually comfortable.

Not performing celebrity.

Not moving through a production schedule.

Simply living.

He tends his garden.

Plays volleyball with friends.

Plays okey.

Eats at the local café.

Helps serve customers when friends need assistance.

Reads The Little Prince to children visiting a summer camp.

Participates in local forums during the Gezi period.

This description matters because it gives Gümüşlük substance.

It is not merely:

a celebrity’s seaside escape.

It is ordinary life.

The Attraction Is Ordinariness

Many celebrity retreats are luxurious versions of the same celebrity life.

Gümüşlük seems valuable to İşler for almost the opposite reason.

He can do small things.

Garden.

Play.

Talk.

Help.

Read.

The actions themselves are not remarkable.

That is precisely what makes them valuable.

Fame Makes Life Absurd

Maro recalls an earlier exchange in which she asked whether fame ever gave İşler pleasure.

Did he not sometimes enjoy walking around thinking:

I am Nejat İşler?

His response was that he had already always behaved as someone a little unusual.

Long hair.

Jewelry.

Different clothes.

A feeling of being separate.

Fame then added another level of difference, and that extra level became frightening rather than pleasurable.

This is one of the best explanations of why celebrity feels invasive to him.

He Did Not Need Fame to Feel Different

This distinction is subtle.

Many people seek fame partly to become exceptional.

İşler describes already feeling exceptional or strange before fame.

Celebrity therefore does not solve an identity need.

It exaggerates something that was already there.

What other people might experience as validation becomes excessive visibility.

The Observer Becomes the Object

This connects directly with the 2007 Ulusoy interview.

There, İşler complained that fame prevented him from simply observing people because they changed behavior when they recognized him.

By 2013, Gümüşlük offers partial protection from that problem.

He can become less of an event.

Istanbul Becomes a Jungle

Maro also recalls İşler describing Istanbul as increasingly unsafe and difficult for him.

The problem is not merely crime.

The minute he steps outside, something begins.

Recognition.

Attention.

Social pressure.

The city in which he grew up no longer permits anonymity.

The city has not only changed.

His position inside the city has changed.

Geography and Fame Interact

This helps explain why leaving Istanbul becomes attractive.

A less dense social environment can reduce:

visibility,

professional pressure,

media access.

So geography becomes one of the tools through which he manages celebrity.

İntikam: Another Departure

Maro places the departure from İntikam inside a much older history.

İşler had a pattern of leaving television series before they became long-term commitments.

Even his early career already contained this rhythm.

Television enters when needed.

Then he tries to leave again.

Television as Emergency Income

Maro uses a vivid interpretation of İşler’s relationship with television:

something like a place to enter when money is required.

This is consistent with İşler’s own earlier interviews.

Television pays.

It does not necessarily define the artistic life he wants.

First Major Exception: Gülbeyaz

Maro describes Gülbeyaz as one of the exceptions.

There, İşler shared the leading responsibility with Şevval Sam and the series ended after a relatively contained run.

This matters because shared responsibility seems important.

He repeatedly prefers not to carry an entire long-running television machine alone.

Aliye: Character Fatigue

The profile also preserves İşler’s retrospective dissatisfaction with Doctor Deniz in Aliye.

He felt the character remained too superficial despite his effort and eventually became emotionally disconnected from the role.

That provides more context for the 2005 Aliye panel record.

The role produced enormous mainstream visibility.

It did not necessarily produce artistic satisfaction.

Bıçak Sırtı: The Television He Wanted

The major exception is Bıçak Sırtı.

Maro says İşler worked on it with Fikret Kuşkan and Mehmet Günsur as something close to the kind of television project they wanted to make.

He became involved beyond acting:

script,

team,

overall structure.

And importantly:

he stayed until the end.

This is highly significant.

Control Changes Endurance

When İşler has influence over the structure, he can remain.

This is an early version of the pattern that eventually leads to producing.

The problem is not simply that he cannot tolerate long projects.

He tolerates them better when he believes in how they are built.

Kapalıçarşı: The Model Fails Again

Two years later, Kapalıçarşı does not reproduce that experience.

He leaves in the fifteenth episode.

Rumors focus on alcohol.

His producer describes the departure more simply as a request from İşler that he accepted.

Again, celebrity reporting prefers scandal.

The longer archive points toward structural exhaustion.

The Retirement Fantasy

After Kapalıçarşı, İşler begins describing a much more concrete alternative life.

Go to Gümüşlük.

Plant things.

Write.

Draw.

Occasionally make a film.

Return to the village.

This is an extraordinarily important passage in Maro’s profile because it predates the 2014 illness.

The later life is already imagined.

The Illness Did Not Invent Gümüşlük

This point should now become explicit across the archive.

We have multiple pre-2014 sources showing:

• Bodrum/Gümüşlük attachment,
• desire to leave Istanbul,
• wish for slower life,
• dislike of permanent television,
• interest in writing.

Therefore:

2014 was an accelerator, not an origin.

Keşanlı Ali Destanı: Another Exception

İşler breaks his no-series rule for Keşanlı Ali Destanı.

Why?

Because the project brings together Haldun Taner, Çağan Irmak and Özen Yula.

In other words:

the specific creative proposition matters enough to defeat the general rule.

Again, the pattern is selective rather than absolute.

İntikam Repeats the Cycle

The following year, he accepts İntikam.

Then leaves before the second season.

By this point, the cycle itself becomes part of the public Nejat İşler story.

But Maro interprets it with more sympathy than the usual “difficult actor” explanation.

He simply does not want television to own too much of his life.

The Ideal Is Behzat Ç.

The profile preserves one of the clearest descriptions of İşler’s ideal television arrangement.

He remembers telling Serdar Akar that he did not want conventional series anymore but would happily enter for one or two episodes when needed.

When Ercüment Çözer was later offered, his reaction was enthusiastic.

This limited guest model was exactly what he wanted.

Television as Going Downstairs to Play

His metaphor is revealing.

A friend calls:

come downstairs, we are playing ball.

You join.

Then you go home.

That is how he wants television to function.

Not:

build your entire life around the game.

Just participate for a while.

Ercüment as the Perfect Professional Role

This explains why Ercüment is such an ideal character for İşler.

The role is:

strong,

memorable,

artistically enjoyable,

but structurally limited.

It gives enormous impact without requiring permanent occupation.

The “Wild” Nature of Television

İşler calls television work something close to a wild system and says he does not want responsibility for that machine.

This connects directly with the labor criticism from 2010.

Three years later, the anger has become a lifestyle decision.

Rather than reform the entire system personally, he limits his exposure to it.

From Reform to Exit

This is an important shift.

2010:
These conditions should change.

2013:
Until they do, I do not want them to structure my life.

That is a move from political criticism toward personal strategy.

Writing Since Childhood

Maro’s profile also reconstructs İşler’s early relationship with writing.

He learned to read very young.

Wrote from childhood.

Entered theatre partly through school and later the conservatory.

He originally imagined possibilities including:

writer,

director,

academic.

Acting was not the only future he imagined.

This is important for the later books.

Writing Is Not a Late Celebrity Hobby

By the time Gerçek Hesap Bu! and later Miras appear, it could look like a famous actor deciding to become an author.

The 2013 profile makes that interpretation impossible.

Writing predates professional acting.

Tezgah and the Older Life

Maro also brings back Tezgâh and İşler’s history as a bookseller.

That older life continues to function almost as a counterweight to celebrity.

Actor Nejat is public.

Bookseller Nejat belongs to a smaller world.

Choosing Films Emotionally

The profile preserves another İşler principle about cinema.

If an actor chooses a project purely according to which offer pays more, the film may return twenty years later as something embarrassing.

So he tries to choose films emotionally rather than only financially.

This is consistent with almost every later stage of his career.

Cinema Survives Because Projects Survive

Television disappears quickly.

Film remains.

That permanence changes the calculation.

Money is immediate.

A bad film can remain part of the career indefinitely.

This helps explain why İşler accepts commercially less obvious cinema roles.

Ugly Characters, Better Choices

Maro notes that İşler could easily choose commercially safer leading-man roles but instead repeatedly accepts physically or morally unattractive characters.

That choice contributes to his later dark-actor identity.

But it also reflects an attempt to avoid being trapped by the original leading-man label.

“They Call Us Suckers”

The profile returns to Kaybedenler Kulübü and İşler’s identification with being a “loser.”

His explanation is revealing.

In his older value system, being called too clever or opportunistic could feel insulting.

Contemporary culture increasingly treats failure to maximize advantage as stupidity.

If you refused to exploit an opportunity:

you are the fool.

Another Critique of Optimization

This connects strongly with the 2011 Akşam interview.

Friendships were becoming optimized.

Plans were becoming provisional.

Now morality itself is becoming optimized.

Why did you not take advantage?

Why did you not gain more?

The person who refuses advantage becomes “the loser.”

Gezi Enters Gümüşlük

The summer description also places İşler inside Gezi-related local forums and activities.

This is relevant because later interviews connect Gezi with his view of younger people.

Here we see that engagement not only as retrospective commentary but as lived local participation.

Reading The Little Prince to Children

One small detail deserves attention.

İşler reads The Little Prince to children who came from Van, Urfa and Istanbul for the Gümüşlük summer camp.

Two years later, Gümüşlükspor’s youth structures will become a major part of his life.

Again, local involvement predates the formal club presidency.

Withdrawal Is Already Social

This is crucial.

Even before 2014:

moving toward Gümüşlük does not mean becoming isolated.

His life there contains:

friends,

local businesses,

political forums,

children,

sports,

community.

The later football presidency is an expansion of an existing social pattern.

A Useful Comparison with January 2013

The January İntikam interview showed the private, orderly, domestic İşler.

September shows where that private self seems to function most comfortably.

Gümüşlük is becoming the geography of that version.

A Useful Comparison with 2010

In 2010, İşler says he wants to leave the market.

In 2013, Maro shows what leaving could actually look like.

Garden.

Writing.

Friends.

Films occasionally.

A less industrial daily life.

The abstract desire has become concrete.

A Useful Comparison with 2015

After his illness, İşler will say that television series are over and cinema will continue.

That later statement can sound like a post-crisis decision.

This 2013 record proves it belongs to a much older trajectory.

A Useful Comparison with 2021

By 2021, the limited-project philosophy has become fully established.

Short digital projects.

Guest appearances.

Few obligations.

The ideal described around Ercüment in 2013 becomes his general working model.

Why This Record Matters

The 7 September 2013 Asu Maro profile is one of the most important pre-illness documents in the archive.

It demonstrates that the major transition usually associated with 2014 was already underway.

Before the health crisis, Nejat İşler was already:

• treating Gümüşlük as his real place of comfort,
• planning a life with less television,
• imagining more writing and cinema,
• protecting himself from fame,
• participating in local community life,
• choosing temporary television roles,
• preferring creative control to industrial permanence.

Perhaps the strongest conclusion is simple:

Nejat İşler did not nearly die and then decide he wanted another life.

He already wanted another life.

The illness later made the argument for living it much harder to postpone.