(Interview translated from Farsi.)

AH: The Red Ribbon, in my opinion, was a film that established a connection with what is inside a person, and we had to look at it with a little more depth. The director wanted to go from a spiritual love to a true love and from a real love to a spiritual one, and that is something that has not been covered much.

Conditions in which three people live together, their desires, their personal differences, the future they see and their pasts determine their relationships. A woman is placed in situation in which two men who have emotional needs are placed next to her and she has no need for this emotional support and was unable to give emotional support, but this expectation is always there. And in reality the knot in the film starts from the point that each of the men try to own and control this woman and that doesn't satisfy this woman. In regards to the story that is the whole of the film and the director will expose any character that can be interesting with this trend of the storyline. We had a warrior who was very attached to his nostalgia whose nostalgia was in reality war, we had an Afghani who was very attached to his idealism, there was a form of materialism and now these two characters that were in conspiracy with this woman, an idealist and a materialist, but wanted to own and control that woman. The woman could've been a symbol for society and these ideals — the symbols for activities of those who are idealists and think that they should control a nation and rule over it based on their own mentality.

Anyhow, in my opinion this is the base of the film, what the people see is the relationship between these three. The day they asked me to read the story for the film, there was a very beautiful scene in it and after reading it, it became clear for me that I can get into this job [project] and can handle it.

The scene which is very important to me is as follows: This woman was pretending to be pregnant and was fighting with one of the men, and the guy said that 'I'm being considerate of you because you are pregnant.' That really upset the woman, so she takes out the fake pregnancy and throws it at the man and says, 'Now what do you want do with me?'

Meaning that just because a woman is a mother, a sister, I don't know, a wife we shouldn't accept her identity and we have to deal with as a strong person who can determine matters at times. In many places within the film we saw that in general her being a woman is not the issue, her decisiveness, her independence, her ideas and attitude toward her own life determined everything and in reality had brought both of them under her control without her femininity being the determining factor, and that is very interesting to me. The unique characteristics of this role are her independence, strength and freedom. This woman does not want to be under the control of any of these two men. She wants to live in the way she wants to, just as a human being with the right to live free and unconstrained with her reasons for happiness, while these two men constantly want to change her direction. This was the main focus of this role and the reason I really wanted to do it.

Holly: It is said that actresses in America always complain that there are no good and strong roes for women, especially those over 25, 26. What is it like here?

AH: It is different here, I can almost say that actors in Iran can be divided into two groups, one group are those who prefer to act in calmer and easier roles. Maybe they prefer to put less energy into it, maybe they are tired, I don't know. There are also those who very much prefer to play strong characters and test themselves. I like to play hard roles and here there are fewer hard roles, meaning that there be many highs and lows in the role, and when you act the role you suffer from the feeling of being lost as well and be forced to try, to connect. To find a simple role is usually much easier for the writer because there are many examples of it around, but difficult roles are also difficult for the writer to create because his mind has to work in a different way. Therefore, here the hard roles are very rare and well there are actresses who'd like to do major roles in which they can also discover certain things.

Holly: Age is not an issue?

AH: The issue of age again goes back to whether a movie actress has come from the theater or not. The theater actresses are more interested and even if they are a little older because of doing theater they have to keep their bodies in good shape therefore there isn't much harm to the actresses who are over 25 and are doing theatre. They can very quickly adapt to difficult roles but movie actresses, because they don't have the exercises of theatre and have not experienced the difficulties of theater, as their age slowly goes beyond that of the character, they may be afraid of doing characters that are younger than them because their physical strength does not allow them to do work at the level of the character that is difficult for actresses over 25.

Because it is very alive, because you have to work hard to go on stage, there is no one to help you and the movement you make and the creativity is yours. In that moment you are the creator of what is being presented to the people, because the director can no longer interfere. The feeling of power you have acting on stage does not exist in cinema. Another of the reasons for it is that it has a visible effect and you get back the reaction to your acting at that moment but in cinema this takes a long time. On top of that, your feelings are cut and the liquid and mobile life that exists in acting in theatre does not exist in cinema, acting in cinema is respectable, I like it, but undoubtedly prefer this one.

Holly: What is the situation regarding artistic freedom in Iran?

AH: If we want to get into this issue, we have to divide freedom into two sections, one is intellectual and thought freedom of an arts movement and the other is the actual and exact freedom and what is offered on the surface. For around 15 years we were entangled with and lacked the lack of freedom on the surface. Meaning that the issue of the actress' dress code, hair, beauty or ugliness, body, these were the main issues and much limitations were imposed in these regards. Also in regards to the issues of thought, meaning what you want to present as a doctrine or as a mentality that determines and is from you and you are claiming, the surface freedoms there were obstacles.

It is five or six years now that with the reforms that have taken place they have granted freedoms in both areas and in my opinion the freedom of thought and the deep freedom in reality is the insurance for cultural elevation and the surface freedom is required in order to identify the character and determine its identity and situation. There was a time that there was no difference in the outfits for the role of a corrupt woman [prostitute] and an innocent and clean woman, meaning the same outfits were used for both and this was a little hard for the audience to understand visually and to believe, because you start believing from the surface and then get to the feel and inside of a role. This caused an issue and today it is to some extent observed and comparatively the thoughts that are created in artistic movements are observed [accepted] or in other words presented and has also gone into some depth and they have granted a little bit of freedom in these regards.

Holly: You do some works that are adaptations of European plays, what do you do in regards to costumes and dress code for those?

AH: They usually put hats on women. You know to act without hats or headscarf in roles that require you to act with your hair and transfer a feeling is something totally out of our reach, while it is our natural right to be able to use our entire body to the normal extent because what is being formed inside us should be reflected.

Let me tell you a story: I was playing a role, a single person act and my instructor was a woman. I was wearing a headscarf, I did the role then my instructor told me, 'Close the door, there is no one except you and me here, so take off your your headscarf.' All of sudden, my acting changed 180 degrees because I could transfer my feelings with my hair. In any case we have these limitations. We were doing interviews once and a woman asked me, 'How do you present love with all these limitations?' I said, 'We all show love by our looks.' She said, 'How is that possible?' I said, 'See the movies sometimes they are truly believable and it has caused us to work in other areas, like a person who is mute or deaf and strengthens his other senses.'

Holly: The 180 degrees that you spoke about, is it the same way in your normal life, does it make any difference in your regular life as well?

AH: No, because with acting, you have to concentrate all your senses in a condition, in a time and place, and you want to present something and use all the abilities of your body to present it correctly. But when you're not acting in your real life. your senses are free and in the proper moment with the proper conditions come and go, and the issue of the headscarf doesn't affect you as much. Meaning that when you want to present something you have to use your entire being, meaning that you can't use part of your being and that is what makes it difficult. In real life, no mostly it's just an issue in the heat of the summer.

Holly: What project are you working on right now?

AH: I'm working on three projects, one of which I had worked on before and it is a repeat performance — that is not too attractive for me right now because it is only the repeat of the same job. I have two other plays, both of which have been dramatized and their dramatic work are finished on paper or in my head. One of them is an adaptation of a short book titled Sheep in the Wolf's Clothing: The Good Woman of Szechwan which I hope to take on stage with in six weeks. This requires a lot of effort because both programs require financial support and in any case are costly because there are a lot of characters in them. They require long practices and they are large jobs and there is no need for support from the government.

How much the government does or does not help and how easily it pushes you forward or how many obstacles it places on your path to the point that you feel tired and say, 'Forget it, I'll just go act in the movies, ' is something that should be determined later on. I usually go act in movies so I can spend the money in theater because the government's financial support is not all that reliable and has so many bureaucratic stages that it tires one out to the point that you say, 'Never mind, I don't want it.' You see this problem does exist in our theatre and we see that most people who can work in cinema or TV prefer not to have to deal with these bureaucratic procedures and continue with their movie acting, but when I think about the play that I want to work on, my feelings overflow and I'm constantly in a rush to get to it as soon as possible but there are many obstacles and they tire me out.

Holly: In America when you receive financing from an institution they try to impose their perspective, what is it like here?

AH: Here they impose their perspectives even when you don't get any money from them. Meaning that you have a framework and a law and you can't go beyond that law. It's not that they will give money so they can further impose their perspective or not give money and not do so. There is the imposition of perspective and its framework is clear because you have to accept it regardless of whether they give you money or not.

Holly: Are you restricted in terms of topic matter?

AH: Yes it is exactly that way. The that is the experience that we have in regards to the our theaters in my opinion. That the play is light is not necessarily the proof of approval or support. Because we have not had many of the good and attractive elements in our work right now. The plays that have these elements in them are becoming more attractive to the people therefore people support them, they buy tickets se the work and those who have to determine the level in regards to the quality of the presentation of the thought don't take the low level of the thought in it too seriously and say, 'Well, it is making money.'

This is a problem and is a serious one. Look, we didn't listen to music for 20 years, we had fewer laughs, didn't have coordinated movements or dance, could say many things on stage and couldn't get into many issues and the people had very difficult, pressure-filled lives along with preoccupations and politics… Now that a relatively open environment has been created, the people want to make this complexity active and pour it out. Therefore they welcome plays that have laughs in them, dancing, music and are happy and at times even contain worthless stuff but are funny. The officials that have to review these, if the content is not in conflict with their concerns, they don't show much sensitivity toward them and permit them to go on stage.

On the other hand, those who don't want only these attractive elements to be in their work and want to have new thoughts and to present what happens inside them and involve people must move very cautiously. Because if they say more than they are supposed to it will create problems because in any case this regime has certain policies. On the other hand if there are no attractive elements for the people in it and they just want to seriously present their thoughts again the people won't welcome and support it, therefore here if you want to do good work you have to do acrobatics so it will have a strong idea behind it and also the attractive elements to the point and extent that it is permissible.

The task for those who just want to create entertainment is easy, the work of those who just want to present an idea in a relative form is also easy because the reaction to them is clear. But if a director wants to have an audience and also move within the framework of government policy and present his or her own thoughts, this is a difficult task. You have to move on the borders so that your ideas are presented, the work is attractive to the people and you stay within the restraints.

Holly: Could you explain what kind of sense of humor Iranians have?

AH: Right now as I speak to you, the Iranians want the political issues to be ridiculed and humored, because 20 years of their lives have been political, for 20 years they were forced to live politically. People are tired from politics and this is very attractive to them, but you can't do these topics in just any theatre either.

During these 15-20 years, theater has been very clean, sanitized and in reality within a framework and the people were unable to exchange many things that they talk about in their daily lives.

Right now, experience proves to us that some of the common jokes, and you have to become familiar with our culture in order to understand what I mean by common, these jokes exist in all countries, the jokes that are a little erotic, and these are attractive and interesting for all people, meaning the masses of the people. I'm not talking about the intellectuals. But we see in the lives of the ordinary people that they joke about certain issues between themselves and unfortunately this is very attractive to our people especially because for 15 years we had a very clean and sterilized theater.

Right now it is entertaining for the people to hear such dialogue on stage. Of course we are not permitted to do them, and I'm personally happy that we are not permitted to go too far in this regards. But again we can't stop something that is inside the people and they want it.

We have to make a path for it and guide it and in reality put it in the path so it would gradually fade, add something else to it so it would lose that attractiveness. I'm hopeful that within the next few years with the changes and transformations that take place, people's tastes will be elevated. But in any case, what exists in most cultures does so here, too.