I wanted to be left alone to live my life, so it was very easy for people to pretend that they were me.

In many ways, it is very real, because I sat there for 9 days, and it was constantly happening, and that was the 9 days of making the film. But you can't say that it's 100% true, because there are places where I've been intrusive and interfered.

I'm not playing myself. It's a symbolic situation, where I want to introduce a fascist behind the table. I couldn't have had anybody else do that; for it to be successful, I had to do it myself.

Because there is so little room for expression otherwise, a lot of people love cinema because they find it a way of expressing themselves.

Rumi, who is one of the greatest Persian poets, said that the truth was a mirror in the hands of God. It fell, and broke into pieces. Everybody took a piece of it, and they looked at it and thought they had the truth.

Usually people like to categorise artists. With my films, I categorise people: if I know which one of my movies you like, I can tell which kind of a person you are.

If I make two films in a year, they'll be different. This is my style - I can't have just one way.