The future of Arab films is absolutely up to Arabs and no one else. They've got the equipment, they've got the will, they've got the talent, now they just need a little bit of history behind them and a bit of cultural relaxation.

I'm not necessarily a good actor, but once people start saying you are, you are. And I know that that's a truism, and there's obviously nothing important in that particular statement, but it's really about the fact that people create you as a good actor.

You know, I find people with great honesty, bodily, physical honesty, who sit just the way they like to sit, and walk the way they like to walk, and don't come into a room all pumped up, I find them elegant.

I think if you're good and you can persuade people you're going to be able to do that role and ultimately the audience buys it, then it doesn't matter whether you were really a chimpanzee in disguise! You've done it.

Bin Laden actually is the most European or westernized of all the Arab leaders. He's the one who is the most polished ironically. He's smart and handsome and rich... you know, he's quite the eligible guy. Well trained by the CIA. He's a very dangerous man indeed and he now has this franchise called Al Qaeda, which rivals Starbucks in its ubiquity.

I think the Arab world has no personality cult situation going on that they have in much of the Western world, South America included. They are a culture of words and religion, and you won't see manycsa charismatic people on Al Jazeera, except for the ones who are now learned presenters. You see Arab leaders getting on TV - which was very hard for me working out how to do the part, since Arab leaders are looking somnambulant, staring into their microphone, almost as if someone's got a hand up their back.

You really expose yourself when you try and go to up the volume and up the size of your performance.