“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.

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.

My worst moments as a parent have been much like my greatest moments as a parent: the product of complete and perfect accident.

Soon it will be a sin of parents to have a child that carries the heavy burden of genetic disease. We are entering a world where we have to consider the quality of our children.

In California, I guess you belong to the state; you don’t even belong to your parents. It’s an old Spanish law. It doesn’t require your parents to swear out a complaint; anybody can.

My parents used to take me to the pet department and tell me it was a zoo.

Where are all the sour patch parents?

I have always been a singer, a writer, and a musician, not as a prodigy or as in a trade handed to me by my parents, but because of an inner voice or maybe a command from beyond reality as it is usually defined.