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.

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

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

Of course I would change anything if John Cassavetes said so - it's his script. But he was very easy about that.

I love independent filmmaking. I don't agree with a lot of it, but that's the point.

John Cassavetes was there at night while I was working. After they [with his friends] discussed as much live TV as they felt they needed to, they started improvising scenes just for the fun of it and one of those scenes everybody got very interested in and it turned into Shadows [1959]. That movie was entirely improvised.

I think that I was lucky to have that period of time [ like coming to New York] because everything was so exciting and new.