My father was a lawyer. My mother was a homemaker. My father was president of the Egyptian Bar Association. He was involved very much during the Nasser era — which was one of the most repressive eras in Egyptian history — in fighting for democracy, fighting for human rights, and I think that to a lot of extent shaped my view as to what I wanted to do in the future. I wanted to have a world where people are free to express their views, to have freedom of worship, to have freedom from want, and I saw poverty in Egypt when I grew up. To me, freedom, in the larger sense — to be able to speak, to worship, free from want, free from fear — I think it was a key as to what I thought I would like to do when I grow up.

Donald Crouch in high school said, “Do you like these words?” I was then writing words of my own. He said, “Do you like these words? Do you like the way they sound in your head?” He said, “Well, they sound ten times better when you give ’em out in the air. It’s too bad you can’t say these words.” He began to challenge me, to nudge me toward speaking again, and by using my own poetry — and then other poets because he himself was a compatriot of Robert Frost, he himself was a poet. He himself said he learned a poem a day. In case he went blind, he’d have a whole book of poems in his head. And he nudged me toward that, toward acknowledging and appreciating the beauty of words.

To me, the greatest master that ever walked the earth. Maybe some could be as great, but none could be greater.

There are three teachers who are still involved in my life. Ray Wilson — who is my office manager, and who was a teacher in my high school, as well as my basketball coach in high school — is very much involved in my life, and is a real father figure for me. A gentleman named Earl Mosley, who never specifically taught me, but was always there, and was a role model for me, was a coach when I was a freshman. And then a guy named Charles McIlwaine, who is a teacher and a coach. In my high school years those three really stood out, really helped to become part of the support group that’s necessary when you’re experiencing all types of physical changes and mental changes, to help to explain things, and put them in the proper perspective.

to isolate and to force myself to write

I would say start off small, build from there.

I finished it only to get on set and start re-writing everything.

I tried to get funding to shoot this film and couldn’t—nobody wanted to touch it, you know?

MOVE was very supportive through all of that. My wife had a natural childbirth — MOVE coached us through a lot of that.

I’d have lesser expectations — those expectations not being as great might actually be more effective