I've never sought to be on an A-list. I've done my own thing and my own thing has thankfully now brought me an audience.

You know, the sad thing of post-9/11, which was of course horrific, was that the city in which I felt completely at home for two decades, suddenly people like us - brown people - were looked at as the 'Others.'

I look for the humanity in people, however big the politics or oppressive the situation may be, whether it's subsumed within a human being or between two human beings. I want to help us hold a mirror to ourselves.

It is because my roots are so strong that I can fly.

They say now in America that final cut doesn't mean anything. As Harvey Weinstein said to some film-maker, 'You can have final cut. I'll open your film in Arkansas.'

Creative freedom is an imperative for me, but it doesn't really exist in a Hollywood game.

We all know the power of film; we all know there's almost nothing more powerful than to see people on film that look and talk like you, like we do.