John Cassavetes was totally fearless, almost unnaturally so. I never saw him depressed, I saw him angry, which they say is the other side of depression, but he was very sure and not particularly influenced by anything anybody said. Our pictures made people feel very uncomfortable much of the time. The characters were very emotionally exposed and people weren’t used to it. Everything was not spelled out. The old tradition was that you prepared the audience but with our films you had to just sit there and hold on to your seats. Some people like that and some don’t.
