Nazanin Boniadi

I was born in Iran, which has a predominantly Muslim population, and I have relatives who are devout Muslims, so I know what it means to be judged based on your appearance and what you're wearing. But your ethnicity and your clothing do not define who you are.

I do think faith is important when it introduces positivity into your life and you see it with love in your heart because there's so many people who unfortunately use faith for detrimental things or to justify detrimental actions.

The way we remember people, even their beauty is all so subjective and a matter of perspective.

I always say, as an actress, I get to portray the human condition, but as an activist, I get to change the human condition.

Jason Rezaian, held for 544 days in Iran, was not a spy but rather a 'Washington Post' journalist whose work aimed to increase cultural understanding between Iran and the world.

I entered the acting world at a time when there was a higher demand for Middle Eastern actors in the post-9/11 world, and yeah, the roles weren't great.

I was shocked when I heard that Farghadani had been sentenced to 12 years and nine months in prison on spurious charges, as Amnesty International notes, of 'spreading propaganda against the system,' 'insulting members of the parliament through paintings' and 'insulting the Supreme Leader' with her cartoon.

In my role as a spokesperson for Amnesty International U.S.A. and as a supporter of various charitable causes including Unlock Iran, a campaign to release prisoners of conscience in Iran, I have never been faced with the threat of intimidation or arrest.

History's lesson, of course, is that attempts to suppress free expression have merely confirmed the caricaturists' original critique of heavy-handed and objectionable actions of overreaching governments.

The entertainment industry isn't a line of work encouraged in the Persian culture. When I called my dad to say I wanted to quit medicine, there was about three minutes of silence. I'm not sure he knew what to do with himself!

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe was not engaged in subversive work; she was an apolitical project manager with the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of the Reuters news agency.

I retweet Amnesty International tweets a lot. It isn't just, 'This person is incarcerated unjustly.' It's also, 'This person was just released.' Those are the victories we work toward, so if we don't inform people of the victories, it does become doom and gloom.