İkimizin Yerine: Beden Değişti, Oyunculuk Devam Etti

İkimizin Yerine: Beden Değişti, Oyunculuk Devam Etti

Hürriyet — 23 October 2016
Interview by Cengiz Semercioğlu

By October 2016, Nejat İşler was no longer speaking only as someone who had survived a major health crisis.

He was back inside a film.

That difference matters.

The public conversation around him had spent years circling around:

• illness,
• intensive care,
• recovery,
• Gümüşlük,
• whether he would return to work.

With İkimizin Yerine, İşler could once again be discussed primarily as an actor.

But the body returning to the screen was not exactly the same body that had left it.

In his interview with Cengiz Semercioğlu, İşler spoke openly about the physical consequences of his illness, including losing toes.

That detail became the headline.

The more important archival question is different:

What does it mean for an actor to return when the body itself has changed?

The Body Is the Actor’s Instrument

For a musician, the instrument can be external.

For a writer, language can continue even when the body changes dramatically.

For an actor, the body is part of the instrument.

Movement.

Voice.

Balance.

Face.

Energy.

Presence.

A serious illness therefore affects more than private health.

It can alter the material through which the profession is performed.

This makes İşler’s return to cinema especially significant.

He is not simply resuming an office job after recovery.

He is returning to a profession built partly through physical presence.

Speaking About Physical Loss Without Building a Tragedy

The press naturally focused on the revelation that he had lost toes during his medical treatment.

But İşler does not appear interested in turning the detail into a permanent tragedy narrative.

This follows the pattern already visible in the 2014 OT interview.

Then, when asked about the illness, he preferred:

“Güzel şeylerden bahsedelim.”

By 2016, he can speak more openly about consequences.

But the consequences do not become his entire identity.

The underlying message is practical:

this happened; life continued.

Survival Is Not the End of the Story

Public narratives about severe illness often stop at survival.

He survived.

He recovered.

End.

But survival produces another question:

What happens next?

For İşler, the answer includes work.

Not endless television schedules.

Not a return to the same industrial rhythm he had already criticized.

But acting itself remains important.

This confirms the distinction made repeatedly in the archive:

he wanted distance from the system, not from acting.

Cinema as a Return Route

Cinema was particularly suitable for this return.

A film has a finite production period.

The actor enters.

Works.

Leaves.

That structure fits the life İşler had been trying to create since before his illness.

In 2015, he had already said:

“Diziler bitti, sinemaya devam edeceğim.”

İkimizin Yerine gives that sentence practical form.

He is doing exactly what he said.

The Return Does Not Cancel the Transformation

Returning to work could be misunderstood as returning to the old life.

It was not.

There is no evidence that İşler wanted to recreate the earlier television-centered routine.

Instead, the post-illness arrangement looks more selective.

Work becomes one component of life rather than the system around which everything else is organized.

This is an important difference.

A Changed Relationship with Risk

Severe illness changes the meaning of risk.

Before 2014, risk could mean:

taking a difficult role,

leaving a series,

refusing work,

challenging public expectations.

After confronting mortality, professional risk becomes smaller in comparison with biological risk.

This may help explain the greater decisiveness visible in İşler’s later choices.

If the body itself can suddenly fail, saying no to an unsuitable job may become easier.

The Body as Evidence of Time

The physical consequences of illness also introduce a theme that will become increasingly important:

aging is material.

Not theoretical.

The body carries events.

Scars.

Loss.

Changes in stamina.

By later interviews, İşler will speak about aging with increasing directness.

The 2016 interview is an early point where the body itself becomes part of the chronology.

Not Returning as the Same Man

Celebrity comeback stories often use the phrase:

he is back.

But no one truly returns unchanged from a major interruption.

The more accurate question is:

What version returns?

For İşler, the returning version appears to have:

• less interest in television,
• stronger connection with Gümüşlük,
• greater interest in writing,
• more involvement in local institutions,
• a clearer awareness of mortality,
• more selective professional ambition.

So the return is not restoration.

It is continuation after alteration.

Work as Proof of Continuity

Acting also serves another function.

It proves continuity with the pre-illness self.

The person who entered intensive care and the person who appears in İkimizin Yerine are not completely separate identities.

The actor remains.

This is psychologically important.

Major illness can divide biography into:

before

and

after.

Professional continuity helps resist that absolute break.

Illness Without Heroism

One of the strengths of İşler’s interviews is his resistance to heroic recovery language.

He does not turn himself into:

the warrior,

the survivor,

the inspirational example.

This is consistent with his earlier rejection of other imposed roles.

Leading man.

Rebel.

Delikanlı.

Role model.

Now he also avoids being reduced to:

heroic survivor.

Again, he refuses a simplified public identity.

The Media Wants the Body

There is an unavoidable tension here.

The movie is new.

The acting is new.

But the most newsworthy detail becomes his missing toes.

This demonstrates the same mechanism that has followed İşler throughout his career.

The media chooses the most dramatic symbol.

The symbol becomes the headline.

The fuller person disappears behind it.

In 2003:

leading man.

In 2007:

violent rebel.

In 2011:

cult loser.

In 2016:

the body damaged by illness.

Different headline.

Same reduction.

Reclaiming the Professional Identity

The existence of the film helps İşler reclaim another definition:

actor.

This is important because illness had temporarily transformed him into an object of medical curiosity.

Returning to cinema restores agency.

He is once again doing something rather than merely having something happen to him.

Relationships and Ordinary Life

The interview also moves beyond health into relationships and ordinary personal life.

This matters because it prevents the conversation from remaining permanently medical.

Work.

Love.

Everyday choices.

Future projects.

These topics signal normalization.

The public may still be fascinated by what happened to his body.

İşler increasingly talks about what he intends to do with the life that body still allows.

A Useful Comparison with May 2016

Only a few months earlier, in the Uğur Vardan interview, İşler had explained the moral consequences of surviving.

He asked what would have remained if he had died.

He concluded that he no longer wanted to live only for himself.

That interview is primarily philosophical.

The October interview is practical.

He is now working again.

This produces an important balance.

Post-crisis life is not only:

community,

teaching,

football,

writing.

It still includes the profession that defined much of his adult life.

Contribution Does Not Require Abandoning the Self

This also corrects a possible overreading of his May statement.

When İşler says he will no longer do everything for himself, he does not mean he will eliminate personal desire.

He continues:

acting,

making films,

having relationships,

pursuing artistic interests.

The transformation is not self-erasure.

It is expansion.

The life now has to contain more than the self.

A Useful Comparison with 2010

The continuity with 2010 is again clear.

Then, İşler wanted to leave the “piyasa.”

Six years later, he has not left acting.

This proves that the distinction we identified earlier was correct.

The market and the profession are not the same thing.

He can reject one without abandoning the other.

A Useful Comparison with 2015

2015 gave the clearest formula:

television series are over; cinema continues.

The 2016 film is evidence that this was not merely a frustrated announcement.

It became a working model.

Choose projects.

Work in cinema.

Return home.

Avoid making continuous television production the center of life.

A Useful Comparison with Later Producing

Years later, during Evcilik, İşler will move beyond selective acting into production.

That later stage can be understood as another attempt to gain control over the conditions of work.

The sequence becomes:

2010 — criticize the system.

2015 — withdraw from series.

2016 — return selectively through cinema.

2024–2025 — help construct the production itself.

The movement is toward greater control rather than greater withdrawal.

Why This Interview Matters

The October 2016 İkimizin Yerine interview is important because it documents the next stage after survival.

Nejat İşler’s body had changed.

His priorities had changed.

His relationship with the entertainment industry had already changed.

But acting remained.

The interview therefore prevents us from interpreting the post-2014 period as a simple retreat from professional life.

İşler did not abandon the profession.

He reorganized its place inside his life.

The physical consequences of illness made the break visible.

The return to cinema demonstrated continuity.

The result is a more accurate picture of recovery:

not becoming the old person again, but continuing as a changed version of the same person.