Tuesday, 18 February 2025

"Entrust Our Children to a Peaceful Country and the Homeland to Our Good Children"

İsmail Hakkı Ürün, the son of former Mayor of Konya Metropolitan Municipality, Halil Ürün, who has attracted attention in the art world with his successful performance in recent years, gave a striking interview about his life to The Konya News.


 Where and how did İsmail Hakkı’s story begin?


The story of İsmail Hakkı started since the beginning of the time. He has survived to the present day by playing what was written. His life story began in Istanbul, the school story in Trabzon, the story of getting to know life in Konya, and the story of telling people on stage or in front of the camera began in Konya when he was a child.


 If there was no acting career, where would İsmail Hakkı be now?


Most likely, he would be digging in an ancient excavation site with the excitement of “I wonder what will come out if we open another fifty centimeters”. Or he would be trying to analyse whether the flicks at the end of his fishing rod on a beach were the strike of the fish, movements caused by the wave or by the current. I’m telling you because these are of course what goes through my heart. But God knows the best.


What are the difficulties of coming out of the conservative neighbourhood and becoming an actor in Turkey?


What was the perspective of the conservatives on the sector when you started, and where has it evolved now? As a matter of fact, the neighbourhood I came from had a very cosmopolitan structure. I came out of a neighbourhood where there were serious ruptures, people took different and sometimes the opposite directions, there were houses and families, and flows, views and lifestyles did not remain the same, or perhaps could not stay. Thankfully, my family is in exactly the same place today as it was then. I’ve had tides in my life too. It’s like I was able to return to my childhood values after a different, fast, extreme youth, sometimes with what life brought, sometimes with my own inner journey, and sometimes with the occasion of those who touched my life. Thank God! When I entered the cinema and TV industry, I should regretfully state that; conservative people were extremely distant from the industry, they had to accept whatever they were given, and had a mindset that did not even come close to the sector. My dear father told me that, “There should be people like us in this sector, there should be people who truly know, adopt, love and represent these people. He encouraged me. The cinema and TV industry was ignorant and unnecessary for most Anatolian families. I encountered such suggestions so many times at a young age when I just started to act in front of the camera. There is a conservative majority that thinks we should be more involved in the arts, the media and the digital world nowadays. this time, they don’t know how to do it in an organized way. Unfortunately, this sector, in which it is extremely difficult and arduous to get a share of the pie and to remain conservative by preserving its values, is unfortunately still a long way from our people. In short, I think there is still time for the evolution phase you asked about.

 

Who is in control of the cinema sector in Turkey?


In Turkey, there are two parts that I see, who control the cinema industry. As you know, one of them is the people who are isolated from Anatolian wisdom and traditions, who are extremely distant, who look down on this nation, who think they are Jacobins and the upper class, who do not mix with the people, who do not even want to represent our people or our country. They are the ones who have dominated this sector since cinema has existed in Turkey and have directed people as they wish by using this magical profession. The other is those who allocate a serious budget to this work, such as the Ministry of Culture and TRT, which are the culture and art organs of the state, but who love, respect, watch over those who are not one of them. They admire the other group. In short, the people and institutions that will really benefit the country and the nation, who will worry about the problems of this nation, are still at the zero point in the field of cinema and TV. There are people who are unhappy with what I say. Let me warn them. In the world, cinema industry is under the administration of the homosexual and the Zionist lobby. Everyone gets what they give. If they can see the majority of the deviant-minded employers and laborers in the cinema industry, those who have anarchy, and people who have never been able to love the state and cannot get along with the people, then they will understand why I paint such a pessimistic picture. Because water sleeps, but enemy never rests.

 

What projects have you played so far?


I can’t remember all of them but let me tell you the main ones; Series such as Mihrali, Bedel, Şeytan Ayrıntıda Gizlidir, İki Aile, Gazi, Sakarya Fırat, Bir Yusuf Masalı, Milat, Kardeş Payı, Cesur Yürek, Mehmetçik Kut’ül Amare, Kuruluş Osman, Payitaht Abdülhamid. And TV and cinema movies such as The Silver Dragon, Tarok, Recep İvedik, Dinle Neyden, Hür Adam, Sümela’nın Şifresi, Uzun Hikâye, Moskova’nın Şifresi, Kırıntılar, Reis, Bırakma Beni, Müfreze, Bir Düş Gördüm.

 

Netflix has been discussed a lot in Turkey lately, most of the productions are pro-lgbt, what do you think?


Netflix is a production-broadcasting platform whose purpose is very clear, especially targeting nation states, that is, societies coming from deep-rooted traditions and customs, and which has adopted the principle of destroying their family structures, individual relationships, trust structures, rules of respect, and morals. A platform that embeds LGBT perversion in almost all of its projects, from cartoons to documentaries, where stories encouraging deviant ideas are told, and “high production works” abound. When you apply for production support, they openly go so far as to ask you to insert elements of these perverse movements into the project, to impose them. These are platforms that resist corruption and have a special interest in well-leavened societies like Turkey. For this reason, they keep the spectrum wide in order to buy a significant number of Turkish TV series and movies and attract those who watch them to their profiles. In my opinion, it is an extremely serious and highly social engineering product. Unfortunately, there is no other way but to counter this urgently by opening and disseminating well-profile platforms that support quality production and broadcasting. In this regard, people or countries with a healthy ethical structure are not in a very pleasant situation.

 

Which role was difficult for you to get out of?


As a matter of fact, I am an actor who greets and meets the characters he plays every morning and says goodbye at the end of each set. Therefore, I have not yet experienced a problem such as not being able to get out of the role. But I can’t say it’s impossible, because it’s an important part of our job, getting into the role, getting into character. Maybe one day I will play a character that I will have such a difficult time, and I will have experienced the difficulty of getting out of the role.


Which character was tagged on you by the audience?


 I think the character that the audience adopts, loves or labelled me the most, is Top Sergeant Durali Tahtakılıç, whom I played in the Sakarya Fırat TV series. This is my observation as someone who goes out to the streets a lot and is always among the people. No character has yet been able to capture Top Sergeant Durali.


Everyone has a dream, what is your dream?


To entrust our children to a peaceful country and the homeland to our good children. A humanity where children are not harmed. A world where children do not experience war, poverty, disease, and violence. A world where free Palestine, free East Turkestan, free Myanmar, free Moro, free Kashmir will welcome us whenever we want. I know some of these will either not happen or we won’t be able to catch up, but it’s a dream. I will wait with prayer, patience, and perseverance.