If you are a businessman or a politician in Iran, you can get a visa as quickly as you ask for it.

In order to be universal, you have to be rooted in your own culture.

Those same people, when they leave the theater, when they look behind the curtains they are curious about their neighbors, they can guess if their neighbors are siblings or a couple, how old they are, what their occupation is. They are curious about each other and they can understand each other without being fed information. Why should it be different in cinema?

In my films, I try to give people as little information as possible, which is still much more than what they get in real life. I feel that they should be grateful for the little bit of information I give them.

I would be too selfish if I said everyone should see my movies more than once. To say that would mean I'm just marketing my work!

I saw this French woman, this English man in Italy. It was a film [Certified Copy] I knew well, but I had already seen it, and I was familiar with it, and I had no feeling of anxiety or responsibility toward it.

Therefore, when you see the end result, it's difficult to see who's the director, me or them. Ultimately, everything belongs to the actors - we just manage the situation.