Mena Massoud

“Guy Ritchie likes to ground things in realism.”

“Art is very subjective and having to put numbers on it seems counterintuitive.”

“Christoph Waltz, you know, blew up in Hollywood at a very old age. He won two Oscars back-to-back so I thought, 'You know what? Even if it happens when I'm 50, that's fine.' You know, I'll always keep going, always keep trying.”

“Growing up in a Mediterranean household ruined my tastebuds a little bit because my mom, my sisters, and my aunt were all great cooks, and ever since I went plant-based, I've been missing a little bit of that Mediterranean affection.”

“We immigrated when I was 3 1/2 years old, to Toronto. But I'm still very, very close to my culture and - back home in Egypt.”

“As artists we have an extraordinary and rare privilege to tell the stories of our people, our land, our culture. They grip us, tear us apart, and put us back together. We are our stories.”

“Ryerson helped me because I was around acting all the time. It was pretty much all I thought about, even if I didn't really get to practice every day; I definitely thought about it. Actually a lot of it was just sitting and watching, especially in my last year, but I think a good actor learns from everything.”

“I put in my time, I worked hard and I followed my dreams.”

“I grew up not really seeing a lot of leads in the industry that weren't like - and I look up to these people - but like Ryan Gosling and Christian Bale.”

“It's a funny thing that's happening online. The Middle Easterners want 'Aladdin' to be a Middle Eastern story, and the Indians want 'Aladdin' to be an Indian story. The truth is, it's really a folk tale from the 1800s, and Agrabah is a fictional place that's a culmination of India and Asia and the Middle East.”

“We've got to celebrate all diverse artists and actors and 'Aladdin' does that really well.”

“You never know how things will work out.”

“I have two older sisters.”

“How often do we get to go to the biggest cinemas in the world and see diverse actors make up the majority of the cast?”

“I think it's time we start chipping away at the stereotypes in Hollywood about the Middle East, and the Arab World, because it's one of the most beautiful regions in the world.”

“Canada's a small market. I think sometimes we do too much of supporting American stories in Hollywood and not enough supporting our own.”

“All I want for my career is I want to work with the best directors and I want to be treated like a Caucasian man would be.”

“I grew up on Abdul Halim Hafez and Esmail Yassine, a great comedic actor. I think Adel Imam also changed and revolutionised the game and comedy in Egypt.”

“My parents knew about the story of Aladdin far before the animation film. It's a folk tale that is very prevalent in Egypt.”

“A good learner learns from everything!”