Sabah Pazar Interview with Engin akyurek January 2017 - by Sonat Bahar
[Translated by Engin Akyurek Universal Fans Club.]
Engin Akyurek meets TV viewers as Daghan in "Until Death" which is the new TV series for atv channel. He wasn't around for quite some time. But he wasn't idle; he started doing magazine publishing. Akyurek, who publishes a magazine in Ankara with his friends, writes and interviews other people for the same magazine. Akyurek who plays a man in love in TV series says: "I've been always the man of conflicting, tough, and traumatic relationships. Audience always expects to see love and love makes everything beautiful." Trke: http://www.sabah.com.tr/pazar/2017/01/15/ask-icine-girdigi-her-seyi-guzellestiriyor
We would meet Engin Akyurek on a day when the snow started melting and we enjoyed feeling the warmness of the sun on our skin. We are sitting with his agent Ozlem Durak at the patio of a caf and there are two young women sitting at a table across ours. He is not still around. But the looks of those young women change and their eyes start shining. Then I understand that Engin Akyurek is coming. I am not mistaken. He comes to our table with a big smile on his face. He has this kind of effect. He quickly climbed up the ladder of success while winning people's hearts, especially women's. Each time he played in a TV series or a film, he gained appreciation of different audience. Foreign Groom, If I Were A Cloud, What is Fatmagul's Fault?, Dirty Money Love... Zeki Demirkubuz's movie Destiny and A Small September Affair... He has accomplished a lot in a long time, hasn't he? This time, Engin Akyurek will be on atv. We meet him in a very crowded place for the TV series "Until Death". People who see him want to look at him once again. However, he is very comfortable. He got used to it.
He tells us "People look at me once and they go on with their own business. If I sat here for hours, they wouldn't even remember that I was here." I say to myself "Come on..." I want to talk to him about different things.
I find out that he has been publishing a magazine with his friends and has also been a writer for the same magazine. They had 12 issues until now. Even though he doesn't tell personal stories, you can find traces of his life in those stories. We start our chat talking about the magazine. -
You write in a magazine named "Kafasina Gore". You were there since the beginning, even during its forming stage. How did you come up with this? - Have you read my articles? How did you find them? I wonder your objective opinion. - I read all of them. I imagined you as a silent, shy, and mysterious person before. But now, I think you are actually very different than that image and you are very attached to the period before 18 years of age. Am I wrong? - Yes, it is a very special period for me. There are some fictional parts in those articles as if I talk about myself. It is not my exact childhood. It is a little bit about me, a little bit about my observations, Ankara, 90s, my subconscious, and my expectations
- In one of your stories, you had talked about your friend who fall in love with the same girl. Doesn't he exist? - Mehmet doesn't exist. However, it is impossible for you and your friend not to fall in love with the same girl if you ever attended a high school. Of course, such kind of situations happened. - How did you come up with the magazine idea? - I have devotedly been following the magazines and magazine publishing in Turkey for 20 years. I never miss literature, humor, or history magazines published. I have an old friend from Ankara, Yasin Oksuz... We always talked about publishing a magazine among each other. But it never happened. Then it became true one day. He decided to publish a magazine named "Kafasina Gore" and he thought that it would be a platform where everybody could write. People from different groups or occupations who reach us or whom we reached out have been writing since our first issue. I write, too. First, it was thought to be a small-scale magazine but I encouraged them to think big. - Is writing for you? - I have things that I wrote since my college years. During those days, my circle was like that and I felt good when I wrote. All of my articles came out from that closet and I dusted them off. My first article in our first issue was a story that I wrote when I was 21 years old. Then I started writing new ones. I realized that years haven't changed the things that I wrote earlier. I still write about the things that I wrote when I was 21 years old. Maybe, I am incapable of telling something else. Actually, the common point of all my writings are the experiences of a young boy or a young man. I want to collect them in a book. - Why are you so attached to your childhood or young years? - My puberty was very nave and beautiful. Maybe, that's why I can easily make fun of that period. - How can puberty be beautiful? - Well, I could have grown up in a very bad environment and I could have suffered a lot. Mine was not like that. I also had those adolescent problems that every three billion men in this planet had; some biological problems, ordinary adolescent stages like inconsistency between your mind and your body. When you see an unhappy person in your adult life, if you dug inside that person's mind a little bit more, you would see that he or she had problems in his or her puberty. Mine is not like that. Therefore, puberty was a fun period that I can joke about. - Is writing a tool to express yourself? - I share my feelings about life. I am communicating my feelings. Everybody is unhappy and does complain about something. Everybody is lonely. I find my solution by paying attention to the child in me. I don't like being regretful. In such situations, I think that I need to find something or go after a feeling. Adding the benefits and needs of modern life to our own life, we shouldn't forget that we are primitive beings. We always aggrandize the past but I am not like that. We all have been living in this country. Were 80s beautiful? No. They were nave but difficult years. Were 90s beautiful? They weren't pleasant at all.
- So you don't long for the past, then? - My writings are about the past with a longing for the future. We are in search of something in modern life and we do this in our past. The past is very precious for me but I don't live in the past. Modern life presents some things but it also takes away many things from you and those things taken away are what I think about the most. I am not just talking about smart phones or social media. I am talking about feelings as well. To understand each other or to feel each other is not that easy any more. There are some moments in life which are very precious. While we had a lot of fun and were happy when we were a child, why are we so tough and distant in our relationships? I keep thinking about these. They are related to child in us. .. - So, don't you check your phone while you are chatting with your friends? - If we are eating or chatting, I put it down and don't check it. And if someone did it in a manner that would disturb me, I would get annoyed. Don't you think that is disrespectful? That means that his person is neither with me nor with the other person whom s/he is texting. That's the problem of modern people. We don't know where we are. Sometimes, I turn my phone off at least two-three hours when I am at home.
- Whomever I talk about you, the first thing they wonder why they don't see you around. - That means I don't meet their expectations. What are their expectations? If we limit ourselves with a couple of venues in Istanbul then it will be unfair to people who don't go those places at all. Actually, I am around and I live on the Anatolian side of Istanbul. I built my life according to the lifestyle here. If I lived on the European side, maybe, I would run in Bebek coast. - We don't see you with a girlfriend. Your private life is very mysterious. - You would see if I had a girlfriend. I wouldn't hide if I was in such a relationship.
- In your new series, you are playing a man who imprisoned for 11 years. Is it hard for an actor? - It is hard. It was very difficult for me to understand what he had been through. 11 years is a very long time. He is a person who unjustly went to prison at a very young age. He is a bright young man who had dreams and he believed in the future. When something happens to people like us who believe in rational thought, certain concepts and law, the traumas and the breaking points that we live through are heavier than other people who don't believe in those concepts.
- Is he different than the characters you played before? - My characters had breaking points. Events changed them. In "What is Fatmagul's Fault?" the character was different before and after the rape and falling in love. In "Dirty Money Love", Omer's character was different before and after he learned that his brother was a murderer. And this is a big breaking point for Daghan. The concepts that he believe in and valued in his life will change; his friends, his job, his strength, his perception of life. - It seems like Daghan will be torn between love of his life Beril who left him when he went to prison and Selvi whom she saved him from prison. Is this going to happen?
- I also wonder which direction Daghan will take after he was released from prison. The answer is in the scenario that our scenarist Elif Usman will write. I think it would be nice if Daghan found love while searching for the truth. - You don't have time for movies as you do for TV Series. But, your career started with an awesome movie named "Destiny." - This is a preference related to projects. If there is a scenario that I love or I find interesting, I love to shoot a movie every year. As a person who like cinema, I realize that I need to be more productive in that sector. It's all about stories. And while I am shooting a TV series, it is very hard to make a movie. - You've been typecast as a man in love. I know that TV audience want to see love but are you happy about this? - My characters were never like men who fall in love and engrave their names on a tree. Love was just another element in the story. I have always been a man of conflicting, though, and traumatic relationships. I always preferred those kind of characters. Viewers can love you as one character but they can love you as another character as well. I can't deny that audience expects love and love makes everything more beautiful.
- You fans are proverbial. They are unbelievable. I think you have a very active fan base compare to other stars. - I thank them. I don't get a chance to thank them since I don't use social media. I want to thank them here. I am just doing my job. I don't use social media, don't share my pictures, and I am not in correspondence with them. But, I still think that what they do is very precious. They are increasing in numbers and they are organizing philanthropic activities on behalf of me. These are very precious. Last year, some of my fans visited me at set. It was my birthday. They met each other because of me and became friends. They were traveling. This made me very happy.
- Who do you live with? What kind of life do you have? - I live with my brother. We have a very happy and simple life. - What do you have the most at home? - Books and movies. But I watch movies from available platforms now. - Who does buy your clothes? - I do. I don't like shopping. I get bored easily. I buy the first thing I see and wear it. I am not worried about my image. There are things that I love and things that I would never wear. You can't make me wear a white pant. I don't like colored jeans. I like simplicity.
- When you don't shoot TV series, how to you spend your days? - I was away from the screens for 1.5 years. I concerned myself with the magazine. I took some vacation time and went abroad. I had worked hard during Dirty Money Love. I didn't have time for my social life, for my friends or for myself. When it was over, I realized that there were so many things that I had to do. First, I spent some time with myself. There were so many things that I need to read or watch. I did those. When I am working, I don't have a problem with being busy or being tired. But, when I am on vacation, I like killing time. I am not a person who plans his day. I am very good at killing time and I enjoy it. I never think "I haven't done anything today." I enjoy being lonely. There are some people who want to use their time efficiently; I am not one of them. Sometimes I can sit in a place for three hours. If I am going somewhere by car and that somewhere may have so many things to see but if I see a nice caf while I'm on my way, I may sit in that caf for hours and come back without seeing those must-see places.
- What do you do if you are bored or too depressed? - I read. If makes me feel good. I try not to get together with my friends because it would be unfair to them. If I was too depressed, I would sleep. - You like going to Kas and do scuba-diving. Did it become a routine part of your life? - It did this in summers. It is a place that I go with my friends and spend some time during certain periods. I rather do scuba-diving than lie on a beach chair. It is very beautiful to breathe under water. You don't have to look into someone's eye to observe someone. As long as you do this occupation, you develop a reflex. You immediately realize if people are looking at you or feel what kind of reaction they show. My back eye is open now (He laughs). We are in a crowded caf and nobody is interested in us. They mostly want to take a picture with you or to chat a little.
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