“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.

Bias has to be taught. If you hear your parents downgrading women or people of different backgrounds, why, you are going to do that.

Nurses nurse and teachers teach and tailors mend and preachers preach and barbers trim and chauffeurs haul and parents get to do it all.

Before you get married you should meet your fiance’s parents. It is not enough that you like his parole officer.

When I read the epitaphs of the beautiful, every inordinate desire goes out; when I meet with the grief of parents upon a tombstone, my heart melts with compassion; when I see the tomb of the parents themselves,

I get over a hundred letters a day from all over the world, from children and parents, and it’s a wonder I ever have time to write books, let alone speak!

I thank God that I’m a product of my parents. That they infected me with their intelligence and energy for life, with their thirst for knowledge and their love. I’m grateful that I know where I come from.

Gerard and I pretty much share all parenting responsibilities, although I’m definitely the disciplinarian.

So I had to figure out for myself what was right and true. It was a search. It was a process. It drew on the moral sense that I’d learned from my parents, and in church, and in my own heart, and led me on my own journey of discovery.