“I think that’s so powerful and cinema and TV has so much power.”

A lot of the problems of parenthood are universal.

Yes, it’s harder being younger and growing up yourself, but all those anxieties and problems are going to be faced by anyone at any age.

I think the performances that really communicate with me are the ones where I don’t feel like I’m watching someone and thinking: “They’re doing some really good acting.”

I would like, in my life, to always be doing things I’m proud of. I know that probably won’t happen all the time. But I’d prefer to be telling stories.

Maybe in some ways, it makes me think: “Do you know what? Some people think I’m alright, so maybe I should go into a job thinking I’m not rubbish.” But I don’t really think about it.

I want to be involved in things I can be really proud of. There’s a lot of bad films being made and I don’t understand how they got the money for it.

When people hear about teenage parents and teenage pregnancy, they attribute a lot of personality traits to those individuals, which is just such a bizarre thing when you really think about it.

I can be proud of and understand why they’re being told. I do watch a lot of films and TV, but sometimes I think: “Why the hell did you make that then?” I won’t say what they are though.

So, it’s nice but I wouldn’t want to go into something feeing like I needed to prove that I was good enough to be there.

That said, there’s a lot of bad telly, but there’s also a lot of very high quality that is something I’d be much more proud of than a mediocre film.

It’s when I’m literally completely consumed by the story-telling and the actor or actress is evoking something in me.

I really hope that I can be as good as some people think I can be. But I may never work again… and that’s the reality of the film industry.

Like, how does age and circumstance equate to some kind of personality trait?

I didn’t go to the cinemas a lot as a kid.

Unfortunately, cinema critics are very few in America, 400-500 people, but there are more critics of Iran.

People have curiosity, they have intelligence, they have interest in understanding their peers. But producers and directors of cinema have decided that the seats in the theaters have been made to transform people’s minds to lazy minds.

The Iranian government as a whole has no relationship with my films. They’re not particularly interested, perhaps this kind of cinema is not very interesting to them.

Cinema seats make people lazy. They expect to be given all the information. But for me, question marks are the punctuation of life.

Cinema gives you the opportunity to be both a grandparent and a grandchild whereas in life you cannot be both at the same time.

Good cinema is what we can believe and bad cinema is what we can’t believe. What you see and believe in is very much what I’m interested in.

I am not ready to fit into the mould of commercial cinema.