You've noticed that same joke told by two different people, once works, and the other time doesn't, simply because how the person edits it. The silences, the pauses, what they neglect, what they emphasize - all of this matters.

I never reflect or convey that which I have not experienced myself.

Unfortunately, cinema critics are very few in America, 400-500 people, but there are more critics of Iran.

When we start shooting I don't have rehearsals with characters at all. So, rather than pulling them towards myself, I travel closer to them; it's very much closer to the real person than anything I try to create. So I give them something but I also take from them.

I don't like reverse-angle shots - I find them very fake and very untruthful to the viewer.

I think it was [Jean-Luc] Godard who said that life is nothing but a bad copy of film, but then our ambition must be to make better films and better shapes of forms that are given in life.

I don't generally derive my stories from novels. I try to turn into film things I have felt or experienced.