Very few people are fortunate enough to walk through countries like Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia, and I had seen them all. I had spoken to many on the street.
I spent a lot of time standing on street corners [of New York City] talking to local residents. I spent time in bookstores and galleries. But most of the time, I really did not have much to do.
To get to know a country, you must have direct contact with the earth. It's futile to gaze at the world through a car window.
I don't know if I'll ever get used to walking into the local shop or a local restaurant and having three or four people recognize me.
I think if you come from where I came from and where I have always been, I've always been reaching out and whether it's talking with our neighbors or going shopping or standing, talking to people in these bookstores and hearing what's on their minds, or even the work I did for eight years as a senator to bring new jobs to New York and stand up for the people I represented.
Being half Kashmiri, it's always special for me to shoot in the valley and to be there with the locals. They are all very warm people who are very hospitable and genteel and always welcome everyone with an open heart.
The basic idea of Western science is that you don't have to take into account the falling of a leaf on some planet in another galaxy when you're trying to account for the motion of a billiard ball on a pool table on earth. Very small influences can be neglected. There's a convergence in the way things work, and arbitrarily small influences don't blow up to have arbitrarily large effects.
You come to know the aches and vanities and tastes and intrigues of an entire neighborhood at a drug store.
I don't always set stories in villages, more often in towns. But always in smallish communities because the characters' actions are more visible there, and the dramatic tension is heightened.
