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.
Gena RowlandsHe[John Cassavetes] was just being an actor. A very successful actor, especially in live TV. He did many wonderful performances.
Gena Rowlandsall 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.
Gena RowlandsI only watch my movies that I make once, so I can just see how it hangs together, but after that, I don't watch them again. A lot of people have disappeared from Earth that you've worked with, and they make me sort of sad once in a while, and there's really no necessity for me to watch them. I've made them, and it's on film and that's that.
Gena RowlandsJohn [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.
Gena Rowlands