I really think that people who want to think more serious have to go and watch theater. Theater is a very sterilized art form. Not as much as music, but very close to music.

I'm always careful about the thing I'm writing to make sure a viewer can imagine it happening to themselves.

Because I write the screenplay entirely and precisely, there is the danger that an actor might feel that this finite role is being imposed on them. I want the actors to feel that this is their own role, and that they can go back to point zero and develop this character.

The fact that I do place music at the end of my films is not to accentuate the emotion. It serves an opposite purpose which is to remove them from the emotional space and allow them to enter a space of thinking, because I believe that when the audience is watching the film they're watching it with their feelings.

Poetry, especially traditional Iranian poetry, is very good at looking at things from a number of different angles simultaneously.

Is there one specific source that determines correct morality and everybody should follow that? Or should individuals come up with following that source or not depending on their situation?

I gained a great deal from the period during which I worked in theater and I value those things a great deal.