I just loved Bette Davis and the fact that I had a chance to work with her [on the 1979 TV movie Strangers: The Story of a Mother and Daughter] was momentous.

I got a part opposite Edward G. Robinson in a play called Middle of The Night, which Paddy Cheyafsky had written. It played for a long time because everybody just loved Edward G. Robinson, everybody in New York wanted to see it. John and I were married at the time and put into a position where I was working very long evening hours and he was working in the daytime and so there was a lot of spare time.

I went to the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, which was in Carnegie Hall, which itself was exciting - just to walk into it.

Never in my life have I ever even thought about anything else [ being anything other than an actress].

John [Cassavetes] loved actors. He gave them a lot of freedom. So if something came up that a certain actor just felt at the moment and said - that kind of improvisation he would accept. He gave very little direction.

So after the Shadows he acted and directed. And it worked out very nicely. And he wrote, obviously.

all creative writers need a certain amount of time when they're creating something where nobody should criticize them at all - at all. Even if the criticism is valid or good, they should just shut up, and let that person create. Because at a certain point you have to make it your own - not the world's, but your own.