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I was kidnapped by Sunni insurgents near Fallujah, in Iraq, ambushed by the Taliban in the Korengal Valley in Afghanistan, and injured in a car accident that killed my driver while covering the Taliban occupation of the Swat Valley in Pakistan.
For me, my awakening came when I was kidnapped.
In 1975, when my students were kidnapped by rebels, I was accused of hiding instead of trying to save them, and of not giving enough money for their ransom. I wasn't believed.
I remember the time I was kidnapped and they sent a piece of my finger to my father. He said he wanted more proof.
A diplomat had been kidnapped, a cabinet minister had been kidnapped, they were under threats of murder. The police forces were rather tired. After a whole week, we were unable to find those that had effected the kidnappings.
I myself had to grow a longer beard and Afghan clothes. I was in danger of being kidnapped by smugglers, though I didn't know it at the time.
We had some problems - my children were kidnapped during that time, and it just changed my whole way of thinking, from being in show business and everything else.
With 'Kidnapped,' there didn't seem to be a sure hand guiding it: everything had to be run-up-the-pole, so to speak, and there seemed to be a large committee, every day fighting about what the show was about.
The candle burns not for us, but for all those whom we failed to rescue from prison, who were shot on the way to prison, who were tortured, who were kidnapped, who 'disappeared'. That's what the candle is for.
There's an overwhelming sense of paranoia in the suburbs. People there seem so much more paranoid to me than people in the city about their kids being kidnapped or their parties being raided or their drinks being spiked. There's a kind of hysteria about that.
