Well, I would have much preferred to have had a normal childhood. I would have loved it if my greatest dilemma, at 14, was whether to go to Benetton for my pullovers. I would have preferred not to have cried all the tears I have cried.
I’m someone who lived in a war for five years. I received bombs on my head every day of my childhood. Did that stop me from living? Did that stop me from laughing?
In every religion, you find the same extremists.
I was a westerner in Iran, an Iranian in the West. I had no identity. I didn’t even know anymore why I was living.
The most exciting time is when I think of an idea and how I imagine I can make it. It would be wonderful if there was a projector inside my eye that and it could just put the idea on the screen for people to see.
Teacher: What do you want to be when you grow up? Marji: I’ll be a prophet.
The movie business is not about the money. Of course, you need money to make the movie. If you have a small budget, adapt yourself. Having $200 million dollars doesn’t ensure that you’re definitely going to make a good movie. There’s so many examples that prove that.
As a director, you have to understand what is happening – if I don’t understand it, you can’t make changes.
Cinema is a world of imagination.
For me, who loves to draw and who loves to write and cannot choose between one or the other, the comic is the best form.
I was a child who had a life, who had hopes, and I wished that a bomb would not fall on my head.
I am very bad at computers. I don’t really know how to write email.
I love the French for their sarcasm, their irony. I love them for their bad moods.
I think with pictures; I’m a very lousy writer. If I write without pictures, I become this pathetic chick sitting somewhere trying to be interesting.
Not everybody loves their children. If that was a fact, all the children would be happy and they would make happy adults. Instead, we have lots of miserable children that later became miserable adults. This is a fact. We cannot change that.
I took three years of karate because of Bruce Lee, you know. I was a green belt.
It’s cinematographic to smoke. Imagine Lauren Bacall without a cigarette.
It’s true that, in Iran, women have half of the rights men do. And yet 66 per cent of students are women.
I chose the actors that I was in love with. I cannot work with people that I don’t personally like a lot. They can be the best actor in the world, but if the first contact is not good, if I don’t fall in love with them, then I don’t want to work with them. It’s impossible.
It’s always extremely interesting to speak at colleges. My books are taught in many colleges in America and are part of the educational system, so it’s really important to me. I don’t believe in so many things in life, but something I believe in is education.