Disney+’s new original film The Last Scene, set to premiere on August 28, explores whether being able to see the future is truly a gift, while building a compelling world around love, fate, choices and the unknown. Starring alongside Hilal Altınbilek, Serkan Çayoğlu talks about his character Kemal, his relationship with Selen, and whether he himself would ever want to know what the future holds.
Kemal enters the story as the man trying to save Selen in the future she has seen. As an actor, what is it like approaching a character knowing that “you are already part of someone else’s destiny”?
As an actor, I know that, but Kemal doesn’t. It was important to maintain that distinction. If I had played Kemal as “the man who is destined to be in Selen’s life,” the character himself would have disappeared. From Kemal’s perspective, there is simply a woman he is attracted to and gradually falls in love with. What Selen knows changes the way she behaves, and Kemal is left trying to make sense of those changes. The interesting part is that the audience and Selen know something Kemal doesn’t.
How would you describe Kemal’s approach to Selen: Is it a protective instinct, curiosity, love, or simply somewhere fate draws him?
I think it definitely begins with curiosity and attraction. Then we see that develop into love. I wouldn’t call it fate from Kemal’s perspective because he knows nothing about it. He believes he is making his own choices as he moves closer to Selen. The protective instinct emerges as their relationship develops. But underneath all of it, I think Kemal enjoys the sense of losing control that he experiences with Selen. He is already a man who is fascinated by those few seconds of uncertainty in life, and with Selen, he experiences that emotionally for the first time.
Is Kemal a man trying to change fate, or is he unknowingly doing exactly what fate wants him to do?
Kemal isn’t trying to change fate because he doesn’t know there is a fate he is supposed to change. So I’m closer to the second interpretation. He thinks he is making his own decisions and living his own life, while the audience knows something else. Perhaps even when we think we are defying fate, we may actually be doing exactly what it requires of us. Kemal remains caught within that state of not knowing.
If someone told you, “I saw you in my future,” what would your first reaction be? Would you believe them or want to run away?
I’d probably laugh at first. I don’t think I would believe them, but I wouldn’t run away either. If the person wasn’t a complete stranger, I’d want some details. I’d ask what they had seen. And then I probably wouldn’t be able to get what they said out of my head. Even if you don’t believe it, I think the moment someone tells you something like that about your future, it settles somewhere in the back of your mind.
The film also raises the question, “Can the future be changed?” Do you believe more in fate or in the choices we make?
I believe in both, and I don’t think they are independent of each other. We make choices every day, and we know that the decisions we make today affect our tomorrow. But at the same time, our world can change at any moment, in any second. I follow what I believe to be right and try to make my choices accordingly. The rest is what life brings.
If you knew that something bad was going to happen to someone you loved in the future, how far would you go to save them?
If it were someone I loved, I would probably do everything I could. The hardest part would be knowing there was a possibility that the outcome wouldn’t change no matter what you did. Because then all these questions would begin to blur together: Are you really trying to help, or is your fear controlling you? Should you tell them? I think if there were even the slightest chance that I could change the outcome, I would keep trying until the very end. But it’s difficult to say how far you would actually go without experiencing something like that yourself.
Does the possibility of losing Selen make Kemal’s love for her stronger?
From Kemal’s perspective, that possibility doesn’t really exist at the beginning. So I wouldn’t connect his love to the fear or possibility of losing her. Kemal genuinely falls in love with Selen. Then, as Selen’s behavior begins to change, a distance he can’t understand develops between them, and that’s when the fear of losing her comes into play. Maybe it doesn’t make his love stronger, but it reveals just how deeply attached to her he has become.
What is the most powerful aspect of love: Imagining a future together, or choosing someone despite knowing there are no guarantees about that future?
The second one resonates more with me. Of course, imagining a future together is one of the beautiful aspects of love, but none of us has any guarantee about that future. Despite that, you choose someone and try to build a life together. Maybe that’s also the part of love that requires a certain kind of courage. You open yourself up to someone without knowing the outcome, and you write a story together.
Would you want to know in advance how a relationship will end, or is love beautiful partly because we don’t know how it ends?
I don’t think I would want to know. Because the moment you know how it ends, your present changes too. Whether you know it will end well or badly, you begin to behave differently. You might even do things you normally never would and, ironically, end up creating that very outcome yourself. I think love is partly about choosing to remain in that relationship without knowing what will happen.
Where do Kemal’s and Serkan’s perspectives on love overlap, and where do they completely differ?
One thing we have in common is that we both know you can’t experience love by calculating everything. At some point, you have to let yourself go. Kemal, of course, takes this to much greater extremes. That’s also how he approaches life in general. He loves pushing boundaries and that feeling of losing control. I don’t go looking for as much adrenaline as Kemal does in every area of my life! But the idea that we can control everything in a relationship doesn’t seem realistic to me and I think it would also be a little boring.
Selen can see the future, while Kemal has to move through that future without knowing what lies ahead. Which is the heavier burden: Knowing, or fighting without knowing?
Knowing, I think, because Kemal always has hope. He may not understand why certain things are happening, but he tries to understand Selen, and all the possibilities are still open to him. Selen has to live with the knowledge of what she has seen. And if you have seen something involving someone you love, even a beautiful moment you spend with them can no longer exist simply as that moment. There is always the future you know waiting behind it. That’s why I think Selen carries a much heavier burden.
As Serkan, if you knew you could change a decision you made in the past, would you do it, or do you think the wrong decisions are also part of what made you who you are today?
Looking back, there are certainly things where I think, “I could have done that differently.” Everyone has those moments. But if you change one thing, you don’t know what else would change along with it. We know that wrong decisions shape us just as much as the right ones do. Still, with what I know today, I might give my younger self a little talking to.
When building the chemistry between Selen and Kemal with Hilal Altınbilek, what did you pay particular attention to? What sets their relationship apart from those of more conventional romantic film couples?
What makes the Selen-Kemal relationship different is that the audience doesn’t have the same amount of information about both sides. Selen knows something that Kemal doesn’t. As a result, there are moments when two completely different realities are unfolding within the same scene. While Kemal is trying to get closer to her, Selen may be pulling away for an entirely different reason. The audience knows the truth, but they can’t change fate either. That creates a different kind of tension in the relationship from the very beginning. I suppose, as a team, we worked hard to keep the audience up at night!
While creating Kemal within the strong creative world established by director Ali Bilgin and screenwriter Sema Ergenekon, was there a small detail you added to the character that wasn’t originally written in the script?
We spent a lot of time together during rehearsals and talked extensively about the character. By the time we got to the set, there were very few question marks left and a lot of things had already become clear in our minds. I tried to physically express Kemal’s easy rapport with the crew around him, his appetite for risk, the way he relaxes in those moments and even how much he enjoys them.
And finally, The Last Scene question: If you had the chance to see just one image from your life five years from now, would you look? And if you did, what would you want to see?
I want to say I wouldn’t look, but if I were actually given that opportunity, it would probably be very difficult to resist. Curiosity might win. But rationally, I don’t think I would want to see it. Even that single image could influence the next five years of your life. Without realizing it, you might start moving yourself toward that image — or trying to move away from it. Rather than seeing where I am five years from now, I would prefer to experience how I get there.
‘The Last Scene’: Hilal Altınbilek Talks About Her New Film
‘The Last Scene’: Sema Ergenekon Talks About Her New Film
‘The Last Scene’: Director Ali Bilgin Talks About His New Film
