Everybody grows up with comedy. I mean, Egyptian comedy has a very, very old tradition. Our theater and our movies are just, like, amazing.
Bassem YoussefWhat I saw day-to-day is like people who are actually asking for freedom, calling for freedom - protesting, singing, chanting, calling for the removal of the regime - plain and simple. And of course there were clashes there because people, they tried to remove those protesters from Tahrir. And I was, like, doing my job as a doctor treating them.
Bassem YoussefEgypt is kind of like the Hollywood of the Middle East. I mean, we had cinema maybe decades before the other Arab countries ever got independence.
Bassem YoussefSatire has its limits. It is really up to the people to make the change. The satirist's role ends at the screen.
Bassem YoussefIt is very difficult to imagine that you can actually get rid of a dictatorship that has been there for 60 years only in 18 days.
Bassem YoussefThe way that things happen in Egypt, the government - or the head of the government - don't get personally involved. They were always goonies and agents and people who do that kind of work for the government either by direct instructions or because they think that they're doing something good or they want to be on the good side of the government.
Bassem Youssef