Egypt is kind of like the Hollywood of the Middle East. I mean, we had cinema maybe decades before the other Arab countries ever got independence.

The way that things happen in Egypt, the government - or the head of the government - don't get personally involved. They were always goonies and agents and people who do that kind of work for the government either by direct instructions or because they think that they're doing something good or they want to be on the good side of the government.

I always tell people that a revolution is not an event, it's a process. It is a struggle. And it doesn't usually go smoothly.

Satire has its limits. It is really up to the people to make the change. The satirist's role ends at the screen.

People say, 'Are you afraid? Are you scared for your life?' and I tell them: If I choose today to tone it down, if I choose today to shut up, tomorrow me, you, and all of us will be forced to.

It doesn't matter if the truth is right there out in front of your eyes. You will find a way, a mechanism, in order to keep your own system of denial. So as I always say it, denial is a river that runs in the - in Egypt. So we became very good in that.

I'm sure even in America, where you have, like, free speech people self-censor themself. And it's not - it happens because of different reasons. Because maybe it's politically incorrect, it doesn't have to really to be put in jail.

Everybody grows up with comedy. I mean, Egyptian comedy has a very, very old tradition. Our theater and our movies are just, like, amazing.

There are people who believe in Egypt that I - I'm actually - I'm getting paid by external powers and external intelligence entities in order to use satire to bring down the government.

We have Internet now and people are not stupid. But it seems that some people are trying to push the same agenda of the Cold War of conspiracy theories and amazing achievements that are very easily traced and validated.

It is very depressing to see that in the 21st century people are still using the same 1950s and '60s style of propaganda.

I was accused of insulting the president, insulting Islam, insulting - spreading rumors, disturbing the peace.

I think by the time I left Egypt, there was about like 400 accusations against me in the drawer of the public persecutor office. It's a way for them to exhaust you, to push you, to put you under pressure, to distract you.

It is very difficult to imagine that you can actually get rid of a dictatorship that has been there for 60 years only in 18 days.

I think that the religious and the military right wings are just two sides of the same coin if somebody uses God and religion and somebody uses country and security.