Rüyalar ve Sayıklamalar

Rüyalar ve Sayıklamalar

Socrates — 1 August 2019

By 2019, Nejat İşler had already been an actor for decades.

But the Socrates interview reveals that acting was never the only creative identity available to him.

Writing had been there much earlier.

Before television fame.

Before Gülbeyaz.

Before Barda.

Before Kaybedenler Kulübü.

Before the public image of Nejat İşler became stable.

The interview, conducted by e-mail around the publication of his second book, Ben Hep Senin Yanındayım, opens a different archive.

Not the history of the actor.

The history of the writer who had been interrupted by acting.

Writing Before Acting

İşler says his relationship with writing goes back to childhood.

In primary school, he wrote poems and small plays adapted from jokes.

Later he got a typewriter and continued writing poetry.

When he entered the conservatory, he began writing plays.

One of those plays was seen by Atıf Yılmaz, who liked it enough to offer him the chance to write a television project.

İşler declined.

But the validation mattered.

Before he became widely known as an actor, someone he respected had already taken his writing seriously.

This changes the chronology.

The writer did not appear after the actor became tired.

The writer was there first.

Acting Interrupted Writing

The next part is especially revealing.

İşler says that once film and television offers began arriving, he entered an intense working rhythm.

He continued carrying stories in his head.

But he stopped writing them.

This is important because it connects directly with his long-running criticism of the entertainment industry.

The problem with excessive work was not only exhaustion.

It also displaced other parts of the self.

Acting expanded.

Writing disappeared.

The career succeeded.

Something else became smaller.

Illness Creates Empty Space

Then comes the interruption.

İşler refers indirectly to the serious health crisis that forced him to stop acting for a long period.

During that pause, he began taking notes on the stories that had remained in his head.

This is one of the clearest examples in the archive of illness producing not simply loss but space.

The illness did not teach him how to write.

It removed the schedule that had prevented him from writing.

This distinction matters.

The post-2014 period is not the invention of a new Nejat İşler.

It is partly the return of earlier Nejats.

The Sahaf Background

Another valuable layer appears through bookselling.

İşler says he had been interested in books since childhood and spent time around Beyazıt Sahaflar Çarşısı from middle school onward.

He also remembers working at Tezgâh and looking down somewhat on books written by celebrities.

There is obvious irony in what happens later.

The man who once mocked celebrity books eventually becomes a famous actor publishing books himself.

İşler recognizes the irony.

That self-awareness prevents the writing project from becoming grandiose.

Why Publish the First Book?

The answer is partly Gümüşlükspor.

İşler says the possibility of using book income to help others made publication more attractive.

The first book generated money that supported the football club and helped provide free training for children.

This directly connects writing with the philosophy he described in 2016.

After the health crisis, he no longer wanted his remaining time to serve only himself.

A book becomes:

personal expression

and

community funding.

The two functions coexist.

He Is Not Fully Satisfied with the First Book

One of the strongest parts of the interview is his willingness to criticize Gerçek Hesap Bu!.

He says openly that he is not completely happy with it.

In particular, he dislikes the sections constructed in interview form.

The second book therefore moves more fully toward fiction.

This is valuable because it shows development rather than self-celebration.

The first book worked.

It raised money.

People read it.

But artistically, he still sees weaknesses.

That dissatisfaction leads to a different second book.

Fiction Comes from Lived Experience

Socrates asks whether the stories are autobiographical.

İşler’s answer is essentially yes, but not in the narrow sense of literal memoir.

He argues that convincing writing grows from things one has actually experienced.

You cannot convincingly write Istanbul without knowing Istanbul.

A meyhane without having been inside that world.

Love without having loved.

Football without having gone to matches.

This gives us a clear writing principle:

write from lived knowledge.

Fiction may transform reality.

But it should have contact with reality.

The Actor Enters the Writer

İşler also admits that thirty years of acting affects how he writes.

When constructing characters, he cannot stop himself from mentally performing them.

This is a fascinating reversal.

Earlier:

writing was interrupted by acting.

Now:

acting enters writing.

The two identities are no longer separate.

The actor becomes a tool for the writer.

Inside and Outside the Circle

One of the most interesting descriptions in the interview is his position relative to social life.

İşler says he is neither fully inside nor fully outside the circle.

That ambiguity appears in his fictional characters too.

This may be one of the best descriptions of his broader public identity.

He is famous but suspicious of fame.

Inside cinema but critical of the industry.

Inside football but attracted to amateurism.

Inside Istanbul culture but living away from it.

Inside public life but protective of privacy.

The outsider mythology around İşler is therefore only half correct.

He is rarely completely outside.

He prefers the border.

The “Tutunamayan” Feeling

İşler says that despite appearing successful from the outside, he has carried a kind of Tutunamayan feeling since childhood.

This is especially important when compared with Kaybedenler Kulübü.

The idea of not quite belonging does not begin with Kaan Çaydamlı.

It predates the role.

The character may have amplified something already present in İşler’s self-understanding.

This is a more nuanced relationship than simply saying:

Nejat İşler is Kaan.

The connection is thematic, not biographical.

Possession and the Desire for More

The interview also contains a critique that connects directly with the 2017 Habertürk conversation.

İşler talks about:

• anxiety over earning a living,
• obsession with possession,
• nothing ever being enough,
• the desire for more.

He sees these pressures as broader social problems that normalize bad behavior.

This fits almost perfectly with the earlier idea of buying time.

If “more” has no natural end, accumulation becomes a permanent trap.

The alternative is enough.

Gümüşlükspor Revisited

Football occupies a large part of the conversation.

By 2019, İşler has enough experience in club management to speak less romantically about it.

He admits making bad decisions during the season.

He says running a club has negatively affected his relationship with football because administration exposes him to ugly behavior off the field as well as competition on it.

This develops the 2015 story.

Then:

he discovers that club leadership is hard.

Now:

he knows exactly how hard.

He Still Values Amateurism

Despite those frustrations, İşler remains attached to amateur football.

He likes the local quality of it.

Players and administrators belong to the same social environment.

Competition remains connected to place.

He values that local character.

This reinforces the distinction between amateurism and professionalism that appeared earlier.

Amateur does not mean unserious.

It means less separated from community.

The Club as Social Space

İşler also expresses satisfaction that Gümüşlükspor has created something for local people to do on weekends.

He describes a mixed crowd:

women,

men,

children,

people from different professions and political views.

This is perhaps one of the clearest examples of what the football project meant beyond sport.

The club creates a temporary common space.

That matters in a society İşler increasingly describes as fragmented.

Istanbul and the Loss of People

The interview contains one of his more thoughtful reflections on Beyoğlu.

He does not simply say that the neighborhood has changed.

He says that many of the people who made it meaningful are no longer there.

Some left Istanbul.

Some died.

His conclusion is essentially:

a place becomes yours through the people you know there.

When those people disappear, the meaning of the place disappears too.

This is a much richer explanation of his distance from Istanbul than traffic or urbanization alone.

Geography Is Made of Relationships

This idea changes the meaning of place throughout the archive.

Eyüp.

Beyoğlu.

Gümüşlük.

Istanbul.

They are not merely physical locations.

They are networks of people.

When the network changes, the emotional geography changes.

This also helps explain why İşler can later leave Gümüşlük after investing so much identity there.

No place is automatically sacred.

Its meaning depends on the life around it.

Aging and Reduced Energy

İşler also speaks plainly about age.

He says he feels far from his former energy and that friends describe him as less tolerant.

This is notable because there is no attempt to romanticize maturity.

Aging gives perspective.

It also removes energy.

Some qualities become sharper.

Not all change is improvement.

This frankness will become increasingly important in his later interviews.

Behzat Ç. and Ercüment Return

The interview also catches another career return.

Ercüment Çözer is coming back.

İşler says he enjoyed playing the role six years earlier and is excited to return to it.

This connects the writing interview back to acting.

Even while expanding his creative identity, he is not abandoning performance.

The archive keeps returning to the same distinction:

expansion, not replacement.

Kış Uykusu and Nuri Bilge Ceylan

İşler also reflects positively on working with Nuri Bilge Ceylan in Kış Uykusu.

He describes Ceylan as highly present on set and strongly involved with the actors.

The comment is useful because later public discussions involving İşler and Ceylan can become dominated by provocative headlines.

This earlier source preserves a straightforward professional appreciation.

Why Not Direct?

Asked whether he might direct, İşler identifies the obstacle almost humorously.

Directors have to go to the set every day.

He does not currently believe he has the necessary discipline or motivation for that routine.

This is perfectly consistent with the broader archive.

He is attracted to creative control.

He is suspicious of total occupation.

Years later, producing may offer a different route to influence without requiring him to become a conventional full-time director.

A Creative Identity Becoming Wider

By 2019, Nejat İşler can no longer be understood simply as an actor who happens to write.

The structure is broader:

actor,

writer,

football administrator,

reader,

former bookseller,

observer,

local organizer.

This diversification is important.

Earlier celebrity culture had reduced him to a recognizable masculine persona.

His actual life is moving in the opposite direction.

It is becoming harder to summarize.

A Useful Comparison with 2016

In 2016, the first book was connected to a moral decision:

do something beyond yourself.

In 2019, the writing becomes more artistically independent.

He is now thinking about:

form,

fiction,

autobiography,

character,

language.

Contribution brought writing back.

Then writing developed its own internal logic.

A Useful Comparison with 2025

This becomes especially important with Miras.

By 2025, İşler will return even more directly to youth, memory, old friendships and earlier versions of himself.

The path is visible here:

2014: memory returns to conversation.

2016: writing returns publicly.

2019: fiction becomes serious creative territory.

2025: memory becomes the architecture of a larger literary work.

The writer identity is not a side project.

It becomes one of the major late-career threads.

Why This Interview Matters

The 1 August 2019 Socrates interview is one of the richest documents in Nejat İşler’s archive because it reveals a creative biography hidden beneath the acting career.

Writing came first.

Acting interrupted it.

Illness created time for it to return.

The first book connected personal expression with community support.

The second book moved toward fiction and a more confident literary identity.

At the same time, the interview connects writing with nearly every major theme already present in the archive:

• memory,
• football,
• Gümüşlük,
• Istanbul,
• belonging,
• possession,
• aging,
• acting,
• community.

Perhaps the most revealing idea is that İşler sees himself as neither fully inside nor outside the circle.

That may describe his entire public life better than the familiar label of “outsider.”

He participates.

But from the edge.