I knew that I wanted to live in a city, but had never really been to New York. But I was begging my parents as a kid to move to New York, so it was just something that I sort of knew from a young age.

I definitely did not play myself. As the writer of the script, I have traits of all the characters. I can relate to all of the characters.

I watch everything from independent art-house cinema to foreign film. I don't watch as many Hollywood blockbusters but once in a while, I'm curious. I like to see what's out there.

I have to try to watch myself and give myself feedback. People would take for granted that I was ready to go right away. And I would say, "No, no, no, no, I actually have to go talk to myself." Because I need to just take a minute to think about what just happened and tell myself what to do in the next take, so just give me two minutes to go be a director.

I knew that I wanted to live in a city, but had never really been to New York. But I was begging my parents as a kid to move to New York, so it was just something that I sort of knew from a young age.

An interesting thing that I've learned is that "no" doesn't always really mean "no," it just simply means "not now."

Jordan is many different things and there's many different parts of it. We don't ever really get to see a modern Arab city, a part of the Arab world where people are seemingly living their lives like everywhere else and also just a part of the Arab world that's surprisingly Americanized, with fast-food joints everywhere and shopping malls. Over the 30 years I've been traveling there, I really saw it grow and become modernized and much more Americanized in a way that surprised me as an Arab-American.