Sometimes I get insecure about being a real director because I look at the great directors, and they have such command. But maybe that keeps me critical of myself. Maybe it keeps me moving forward.

I like to think that if I were gay I would be out. Rupert Everett-style.

It's been reinforced to me, and it's a little cliche, but I've learned that you can't make a movie that even works, much less that's good, without really good writing and really good acting. That lesson has led me to not be distracted, so much, by the other stuff going on in filmmaking and to focus on the essence of a story, and the words and the events and the way that those are interpreted by the actors. That philosophy has taken me to a place that I really like.

Persia is very different from the Arab Middle East in terms of architecture and language. Even though we think of them as one big Middle Eastern area, in truth, Persia's quite distinct.

There is nothing worse that a thirteen-year-old boy. You're embarrassed by your parents, and you're trying to find your independance because, deep inside, you are so dependent on your mom.

My mother taught public school, went to Harvard and then got her master's there and taught fifth and sixth grade in a public school. My dad had a more working-class lifestyle. He didn't go to college. He was an auto mechanic and a bartender and a janitor at Harvard.

The value of work, and of always learning something new, and what it takes to achieve excellence. I really believe in those things that you have to dedicate yourself and spend time, that excellence is elusive. It's a little maddening, to try to have that level of discipline in your life, and I don't succeed all the time. But I do try.