Asghar Farhadi Quotes

There is an incredible appetite out there for in-depth, high-level conversations about what's going on.

I think it's sinful to give the audience material it knows already, whether the material is about race relations or the car culture or the depiction and placement of a candy bar.

Between Twitter and Facebook I have nearly 70,000 followers, so my colleagues receive the responses. They show some of them to me, and I am always interested to read what people have to say. I filter all the information that reaches me, from letters in the newspaper, to conversations. There are many influences that shape my decisions, and often people on Twitter are thinking along the same lines as I do on an issue.

If I want to read something that's really giving me something serious and fundamental to think about, about the human condition, if you like, or what we're all doing here, or what's going on, then I'd rather read something by a scientist in the life sciences, like Richard Dawkins, for instance.

Any time someone doesn't like one on the first run, I hope they will give it another shot. At least we'll get another chance. But I do feel, in my approach, I am not really a minimalist. I don't like to leave out ideas that I think could add something to the story. Sometimes, you can't quite pick up on all of it in one sitting. It's not by design. But maybe it's a side effect of my approach.

When people realize that in the long run you may be turning off the audiences more, even though they will look temporarily--in the end they turn away, we really need to develop other metaphors and not talk about two sides, but talk about all sides.

I think there is a time, if I can say this; there is a time in a message where you might just tell a story to give your audience a break.

There are very complicated issues here [about NATO], and I don't want to give them short shrift.

I think the worst thing you can do is take an arrogant approach and not give people enough content to wrap their heads around.

We fail when we try to give simple answers to complicated problems.

If we were to focus our attention on one particular problem and neglect the others, we would fail to see the true scope of our current global issues. The changes made in that form of thinking are limited and self-contained.

If I didn't get joy from acting, I wouldn't do it. My passion for acting is growing and I love telling good stories and inspiring stories and helping to give a little happiness to the world and perhaps get the audience to think about different issues.

I have often been amused by our vulgar tendency to take complex issues, with solutions at neither extreme of a continuum of possibilities, and break them into dichotomies, assigning one group to one pole and the other to an opposite end, with no acknowledgment of subtleties and intermediate positions and nearly always with moral opprobrium attached to opponents.

About specific social issues, there is a great deal to say that departs very far from truism and is, accordingly, significant and controversial.

I love the idea of changing my look. I think one owes it to the audience, to go out there and give them something different each time, so as not to bore them to death.

I need to create a whole cinematic experience. I think that's what it takes to get the audience to the theater and justify seeing [a movie] on a big screen. You have to give them a cinematic experience.

There's a host of difficult issues here, and that's why when you mentioned at the top of the show that the committees were looking at this, that's where I think we should be going.

I think that the best television now is giving you a three-act experience.

As part of my Christmas present I'd be giving chickens to a family in Nepal through the Heifer Foundation. I think they expanded my world when I was young to know sort of the other issues that were going on globally.

I think movies in general should have more respect for the audience than they do. Too many films are afraid to confuse people, so all the information is given to them right away, and there's nothing left for the film to do. It ruins many stories, because everything becomes obvious and predictable. I want my films to engage people more and make them more actively involved in the story.

I'm probably harder on myself than I need to be, but it's important to me if I'm going to ask an audience for an hour of their time that I don't waste their time. I want to give them something significant to chew on.

Controversial issues are always more interesting but I don't create material about a subject I have opinion on just because it's controversial. The most fun is having a point of view that the audience is generally against and presenting an argument that challenges their thinking.

I think nobody wants to hear a sermon. Well, some people do, but maybe not through music or not with me. No one wants to hear me give a speech that way.

Yes and no are soon said, but give much to think over.

I always think the audience sometimes wants what you're not giving them.