It was more freedom than I think most people get when they're starting out - or even when they're not starting out. He [John Cassavetes] did his thing and I did whatever I thought.

It was more freedom than I think most people get when they're starting out - or even when they're not starting out. He [John Cassavetes] did his thing and I did whatever I thought.

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

Because John Cassavetes was so terrific in live TV, a lot of his friends had not been able to participate in that yet and so they asked if he would gather with them at night when I was at the play and tell them what live TV was like, what you had to adjust to because it was its own medium - it had many things you had to be aware of.

John [Cassavetes] had shot a great deal of Shadows and I had to go fulfill my contract in California, so he and all the rest of the Shadows cast came out to California and they finished it off and he cut it. He turned the garage into an editing room and he was by then a director of Shadows. That's the only thing he'd directed. But, he loved it.

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

It was a very hard play [Woman Under the Influence] to do every night. And John Cassavetes said, "Don't worry. Don't even think about it, you're right. I hadn't thought of that." He said, "Just forget it."