Girls rejected me a lot.

Aren't all people flawed?

Tone is very important to me.

I went to film school to direct.

I've lived a very isolated life.

I have tremendous social anxiety.

I love reading about other people's world view.

People thought I looked weird, that I talked weird.

A lot of unexpected things do happen on 'Mr. Robot.'

Reality, in general, in my opinion, has gotten blurred.

I went to NYU undergrad, then went to AFI for grad school.

'Fight Club' is great in its spirit of anti-establishment.

I rip off of every movie and TV show I've ever seen in my life.

I love when a protagonist and antagonist can find common ground.

I think there is more cohesion when you have one director on set.

I'm controlling over anything I create. I'm very precious about it.

I'm not saying I'm a control freak, though I'll admit that I am at times.

My parents were very strict Muslims, and they weren't shy about showing it.

I've always been fascinated by this idea of who we are versus who we want to be.

I'm very protective of my online life, and I try and take as many security measures.

I'm not a huge fan of very plotty shows. I'm much more of a fan of character-driven stories.

When you don't have a main character that's flawed, I don't know how you relate to that person.

I think I was told numerous times in the industry that nobody wants to watch a guy on a keyboard.

I think people are more than their heritage or their skin colour or their name or how they grew up.

I used to hold Stanley Kubrick film festivals at my house in high school. These are not cool things.

I've seen shows that start to go down the path of fan service, and it really diminishes the quality.

I had a funny last name, and I didn't look like everybody else, and I got faced with a lot of racism.

I think technology gives the illusion that you are connecting with people, social media particularly.

Sound design is always critical, especially when you're doing a thriller with a lot of suspense and tension.

The 2016 election, I'm sure, wasn't the first one to be hacked; it was just the first one that was made public.

I always thought the writing process for movies and TV shows was just a blueprint. The making of it was the thing.

That's what I did growing up. Other than being on the computer, I was watching TV and movies. I make no apologies.

The story of 'Mr. Robot' is really about this guy who's lonely - who's alone and feels so disconnected from the world.

I'm Egyptian, and my parents stupidly decided to move us down to South Carolina when I was five, which was pretty brutal.

When I first created the world of 'Mr. Robot,' I thought it would be a niche television series with a small, cult following.

Growing up, my parents were very much about the Egyptian culture. They never really wanted to assimilate in American culture.

I was a nerd, growing up, I was really into computers and technology, and most of my friends were basically in that world as well.

I remember growing up in suburban New Jersey, and all the computer stores were like, 'Motherboard Mayhem' and all these cheesy names.

There are some critics that will just write provocative stuff to get attention, but I would say most of the time that's not the case.

Do I want a character who just has the best motives and the best intentions, zero flaws, and is doing things for the right reasons? No!

I don't mind Twitter. I think it's a lot of nonsense, but at least, to me, Twitter is just more of a public forum to have conversation.

When events like the Sony Hack or the news of the Russian hack of our election, we're not shocked by such events, but they are troubling.

Even great actors who transform who they are still go to a really honest place; I think that's sort of that special skill that actors have.

It's strange not to allow the actor some input and breathing room into what was written on the page - it is their job to make it come alive.

Looking back at 'Taxi Driver' or, really, any of the Martin Scorsese films, he really filmed New York City in a way that I saw New York City.

This is the great thing about TV is that when you discover certain strengths in an actor, you can then begin to exploit them in really fun ways.

It's not necessarily bad that you have angst or you have anger - it's what you do with it, how you interpret it into something profoundly moving.

The fact you can manipulate people because you can hack them and learn everything about their personal lives - that's an immense amount of power.

I'm not in the business of adapting things that are popular for the sake of just getting it on the screen. I think there has to be a vital reason.

What resonates with me whenever I watch a great movie or TV show is the balance of inevitability and unpredictability. And it's a very delicate balance.

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