There is no privilege in restriction. In other words, I disagree with people who say restriction makes you more creative. I think that's a misleading slogan. I might have been more creative without them than with them.

When I came to know theater, drama became valuable to me.

I always thought that in the countries that the modernity kicks in later, it seems that everything changes on the surface, the physical things change, but inside, things haven't changed, really. This is always the challenge of this kind of community, to make a harmony between the cultural traditions and the modernity of modern life.

Whenever I write a part, I think there's this person somewhere in the world that this part is specifically for and all I have to do is go searching to find that particular individual.

It was important to me to make a film where I don't show the past but where the spectators can see the past.

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

It's very difficult to talk about religion in Iran because religion has gotten so mixed up with politics.