To be a veiled Muslim woman on screen is a very scary minefield for me.

Although I come from a family who are Muslim - my mother is Egyptian, my father is Palestinian - my mother only puts a veil on her head when she has a bad hair day.

I didn't want to be an actress. I wasn't trying to be in film or an art gallery for me.

I come from a family of refugees. I'm used to surviving and going with the flow, and what happened to me was just life.

I am a contradiction myself. I'm always looking for something that scares me because when I'm not scared, I'm not stimulated.

In TV, you don't know everything. The writers only give you scripts before you shoot the episodes. They keep you on your nerve.