When we were growing up, the only person we saw on TV that vaguely resembled us was the Iron Sheik - the pro wrestler whose signature move was the 'Camel Clutch.'

In terms of leadership, you've got to allow for people to be amazing and to contribute in a way that's meaningful. You can't hold on so tight that people don't get a chance to do what they do best.

In the writers' room, the challenge is always to tell interesting stories in unexpected ways, so we try to never limit ourselves in how we accomplish that.

When you're writing a pilot, unless you already have an actor attached to the project, you're writing it with all the voices sort of in your head. Once you actually cast it, the actors become the voices of the characters, and you start to write for them and their strengths.

I'm from a single-parent family. My mom is like my mom and dad. She's my world.

In my own mind, we are a much happier and much more functional family and a much more well balanced group of individual s both off and on the stage - in the current incarnation.

Thirteen' was really hard on my family. I wrote this movie about them and their flaws and imperfections and what it was like growing up. It was from one kid's perspective and not a well rounded one. You get older, and it's like, 'How dare I portray my father as being a totally vacant, careless schmuck?'

My family owned a bunch of pharmaceutical manufacturing plants and other consumer-goods manufacturing plants. We would license Western goods and manufacture them in Iran and distribute them throughout the Middle East.