Selim Bayraktar (Çandarlı Halil Pasha), Osman Sonant (Loukas Notaras) and Ushan Çakır (Zaganos Pasha) talk about their characters and focus on things which are not known about the series.
Rise of Empires: Ottoman considers the Ottoman Empire from a different perspective, taking as its subject the rise of Sultan Mehmet the Conqueror, one of the sultans who made their mark on history, and his conquest of Istanbul. It presents this with an objective narration incorporating the views of different history experts from Turkey and abroad.
Shotlist:
1. Photos from the series
2. Osman Sonant (Loukas Notaras) talking about his character
3. Scenes from the trailer
4. Selim Bayraktar (Çandarlı Halil Pasha) talking about his character
5. Ushan Çakır (Zaganos Pasha) talking about his character
Subtitles:
0:00:16 Osman Sonant (Loukas Notaras): There is that image that we have heard about since our childhood of Byzantine games and Loukas Notaras is totally a player of those Byzantine games. But of course this person who himself plays and orchestrates these Byzantine games is not successful and Istanbul is conquered. 0:00:42
0:00:48 Selim Bayraktar (Çandarlı Halil Pasha): When we think of Çandarlı in a broad sense, a man who conducts good strategy, authoritarian, rich and intelligent, but of course in the battlefield, it is difficult to conceive of him being 21 years old. 0:01:04
0:01:11 Ushan Çakır (Zaganos Pasha): After Çandarlı Halil and the conquest of Istanbul, Zaganos Pasha is made the Sadrazam (Grand Vizier), hence they do have such a bond but not as a mentor, they cannot really stop a 21-year-old, at that point nobody can stop the Conqueror. 0:01:27
0:01:28 Selim Bayraktar (Çandarlı Halil Pasha): There will be debate as to whether Çandarlı Halil was a traitor. Ultimately, I personally do not believe he was a traitor becuase he tried to protect the interests of his country as much as he could. When the Conqueror sent his last jannisaries to attack he warned him, he said these are the last soldiers we have. Of course, he did not know what was going through the Conqueror’s head. He could not anticipate what he would do with that fire of youth, so we don’t know what happened in that moment in history, we don’t know what was discussed. One would have liked to have sat down and talked with the Conqueror, with Çandarlı. But we can only interpret that one was a traitor and one was a patriot. Whereas the truth could be completely different. 0:02:16
0:02:17 Osman Sonant (Loukas Notaras): The reason for Loukas Notaras and Çandarlı Halil being involved together was really that they though that the interests of the two sides would be best served in this way. They were two individuals who really grew up, gained experience and matured with the bureaucracy. That is, they weren’t two people who did this just for their personal interests, both made efforts to maintain the deep traditions which they came from and to prevent that culture from being destroyed. The Byzantine side sees Sultan Mehmet the Conqueror as a young and inexperienced leader who will be the victim of his own youth. That is they didn’t know with what ambition, what intelligence, planning and control he would conduct this business and for them Sultan Mehmet the Conqueror was just yesterday’s child. 0:03:23
0:03:31 Ushan Çakır (Zaganos Pasha): We told the story from a very impartial perspective, that is normally with such things states shape their histories in their own fashion. We look at things from something of an orientalist view in telling our story. Because this is viewed from a very objective place, it is both more understandable and as a docudrama more revealing. From one side, because you view it through the characters, because the dramatic effect is something that enables people to establish empathy, I am sure that people will begin to be interested, saying ‘aah, so that’s what happened’. 0:04:04