Comedian Jon Stewart may be best known for his hosting duties on The Daily Show but last year he carved time out of his very busy schedule to write and direct his first movie.

The film is Rosewater and is inspired by the real-life story of Maziar Bahari, a journalist detained in an Iranian prison after being falsely accused of espionage.

Bahari’s memoir Then They Came For Me depicts the brutal incarceration and after a lengthy conversation with him on The Daily Show, is exactly what motivated Stewart to make the movie. Their collaboration to bring Rosewater to the screen was a long and tumultuous one. Stewart took time off from The Daily Show to make the film and scouted locations in Jordan to substitute for Iran, since shooting there was definitely not an option.

The film premiered earlier this year at the Toronto film festival to much acclaim and has made the long road for Stewart and Bahari worth it. The two men recently traveled to San Francisco to promote Rosewater and spoke to us about their journey making the film. The following is a transcription of that conversation.

Q: I’ve read that your original vision for the film was a lot darker. How much darker was it than the finished product?

Jon Stewart: I wouldn’t say it was darker. There was this idea that originally we wanted to do it in Farsi but certainly not darker. Maziar had a good point when he said, “don’t you want people to see it?” (laughs)

Q: Having said that, how did you walk the line between what you wanted for the film and what you felt was commercially acceptable?

Stewart: It’s not so much that it was commercially acceptable, it was just the best way to tell the story with integrity. The truth is, and you may not know this, I am not fluent in Farsi. To direct a film in that language would be the height of presumption and hubris. (laughs) There are great Iranian filmmakers who could make that film but this was going to be a reflection of the source material, which was Maziar’s book.

Q: There’s a part in the film…

Stewart: I haven’t seen it (laughs)

Q: What’s your opinion of social media in political movements? Is it a benefit or a burden?

Maziar Bahari: It’s definitely not a burden. Some people have issues with Facebook and Twitter that intelligence agencies can get information from them. But that’s not a big issue, people can do it from other means as well. I think social media is expediting these non-violent movements all around the world, not just in Iran.

Stewart: I think it’s also important to view it through its strengths and limitations. It’s an excellent way for people to organize and spread information. That being said, it’s limited in its advocacy in terms of building the types of lasting civic institutions and structures that need to be in place for those information technologies to be effective. It’s not just about getting people on the street, you also have to have something to fill that power vacuum.

Q: This being your first film, did you have any major influences going into it?

Stewart: My biggest influence was Maziar. It’s his story. The intention was to create a palette the story could live in without the palette itself drawing your eye. I think the expectation from many westerners about Maziar being held in a Middle Eastern prison is, “oh that must be underground. There must be no lights and rats are running around.” Every prison is not that, it’s a bureaucratic institution. Much like hospitals, they clean the floors. You don’t view it as Dante’s Inferno, it’s a bureaucracy.

Bahari: The food is better than most airlines.

Stewart: And you obviously have to keep your seat in the upright, locked position.

Q: You’ve obviously been interviewing celebrities and filmmakers for years. Did all of that experience make you want to step behind the camera and if so, how did you bring that experience to the set?

Stewart: It was a relatively organic process that grew out of our relationship early on. Obviously we didn’t have any money and the writers we love who had won many awards were apparently busy being paid for other shit. This is a question of a relevant issue wanting to be made and wanting to maintain a certain level of creative control over the process. We felt very strongly about it and didn’t want to relent that to a larger entity who may have a different take on it. What if they said something like, “what if Maziar was a lesbian and not in a prison” to try and make it more commercial?

Bahari: It also came out of a mutual trust because I had been on “The Daily Show” and I trusted Jon. When we started working together there was definitely mutual trust.

Q: You’re traveling a lot with this film and getting a lot of the same questions. Is there one question you wish would go away?

Stewart: Generally I’ve found that people are very well versed in the subject matter, they are invested in the story. Maybe something reductive or crass? Not really.

Rosewater is now playing in theatres nationwide.

Related: John Oliver replaces Jon Stewart as Daily Show host (again!) to promote Rosewater