 The concept for the short film, written by Issawi and writer Dick Grunert, was, in fact, very close to Sayed Badreya's real-life conundrum as an Arab-American actor struggling to find roles in the U.S. – he was always cast as a terrorist.Shalhoub responded strongly to the idea, seeing both its poignant and comedic possibilities—and so began the production of the short film "T for Terrorist", which the three filmed in March 2003 with Tony Shalhoub performing, Sayed Badreya starring and producing, and Hesham Issawi directing and producing.When the short did well on the festival circuit, winning Best Short Film awards at the Boston International Film Festival and the San Francisco World Film Festival, the three determined to expand upon the idea of "T for Terrorist" to develop a bigger project that would represent more characters from the Arab-American community who they felt were constantly being stereotyped by Hollywood.