“I was lucky enough to have parents that took me out from country to country and go to school and learn how to be a better person.”

I dont see myself only as a Somali character. I think of myself as an actor, and if the job fits me and I like the story, I will go for it.

I left Somalia when I was seven years old, but I witnessed a whole year in a war.

The line was originally, ‘Captain Phillips, get a load of me: fancy-free on the seven seas,’ but I ad-libbed.

It is weird. A lot of people try to ask me political questions. Im not a politician.

What I believe will make my acting career successful going forward is hard work. I like to challenge myself. Then it’s the people I meet and choosing the projects I want to work on correctly. There’s a lot of characters I can play.

When you work with a great director, you realise you are far from being a director.

I just want to keep acting and better my craft and see how far it goes.

When they asked Jack Benny to do something for the Actor’s Orphanage – he shot both his parents and moved in.

You can’t be a parent and say, ‘I need you to be more active and I need you to eat right,’ when you’re still choosing to have poor eating habits.

My parents put skates on me at age 2, the way it should be if you’re serious, and I’ve always liked it.

It’s not only exciting to watch, but you can also speak a different language with each other. It’s a music language that’s unique, compared to what other parents do, especially in their professional lives. Not everybody can talk about being an accountant.

I wanted to be a child actor so bad that every day I’d beg my parents if I could audition, but my mom said, ‘Not until you can drive yourself to auditions.’

Your parents were always trying to get you to be careful when you were a kid, and that’s all pervasive in this society.

Parents now are concerned about the moral and spiritual diseases. These can have terrible complications when standards and values are abandoned. We must all take protective measures.

Because of the fact that we’ve been through so much, we’re going to appreciate every step of being parents. I think we’re going to savor it and cherish it and we’re going to be the best parents we can be.