Cassavetes On Cassavetes Quotes & Sayings

When your child is sick, you have tunnel vision. — Nick Cassavetes

I was a big fan of John Cassavetes, his wife, Gena Rowlands, and that era of filmmaking which was about realism and which represented the antithesis of the dreamy escapism you found in musicals. — Carmen Ejogo

I'm a great believer in spontaneity because I think planning is the most destructive thing in the world. — John Cassavetes

John Cassavetes wrote A Woman Under the Influence as a play. He said, "Hey, I wrote you a play." And I said, "Great, let's read it." I read it and I said, "John, I couldn't do this every night and twice on Wednesday and Saturday". — Gena Rowlands

The idea of love as a mysterious, undiscovered world has come to have no place in our innermost imagination. — John Cassavetes

It's a bloody shame that all the video stores have gone, I'll tell you. Everything's so mechanical now. It's all so if-you-liked-this-then-you'll-like-this. There's no picking something out, or finding some brilliant person to open up new worlds for you. — Alexandra Cassavetes

You look at people like Gena Rowlands, but she had [John] Cassavetes to write these amazing roles for her. — Winona Ryder

I didn't plan to be a director until I was 35. For years I wanted to do anything but! — Alexandra Cassavetes

I just want to make something that is true to itself and that interests me; otherwise, how can I have the audacity to think it's going to interest anybody else? — Alexandra Cassavetes

I think vampires are different from human beings, but they're sentenced to eternity on this planet. They have the same confusion about love and permanence, integrity, and denial. These qualities really are the same in vampire characters as in humans. I think they're universal themes. — Alexandra Cassavetes

You just go in and try to do the best job you can everyday. — Nick Cassavetes

Films today show only a dream world and have lost touch with the way people really are ... In this country, people die at 21. They die emotionally at 21, maybe younger ... My responsibility as an artist is to help people get past 21 ... The films are a roadmap through emotional and intellectual terrain that provides a solution on how to save pain. — John Cassavetes

I hate entertainment. — John Cassavetes

Well, I think that people are smart enough to understand the difference between a movie and real life. — Nick Cassavetes

In general, I hate films that are overtly either very masculine or very feminine, you know? The same way that I don't like a war movie about soldiers smashing people's heads. But a chick flick I like would be Cassavetes' movies. 'A Woman Under the Influence,' 'Husbands.' — Gael Garcia Bernal

People have said that my films are very difficult to watch, that they're experiences you are put through rather than ones you enjoy, and it's true. — John Cassavetes

People are fascinated with eternal life and physical power - the idea of having no vulnerability. We all feel small and powerless in the world at times, so the temptation to be a vampire is compelling. — Alexandra Cassavetes

I don't care about being on top, about being No. 1. I just make movies for a few suckers in the audience, anyway. — John Cassavetes

The celebrity culture demands a camera-ready-at-all-times look or else the photo is circulated in a demeaning headline. — Zoe Cassavetes

To me there is a name for each person. I think it's marvelous to have a name. A woman is not a woman. It's either Gena or my mother or some other person. — John Cassavetes

Love is a component of many different things - the baggage you bring, the moment, what you need in your life, seeing someone as a portal for understanding everything, and all the intensity that brings. It's not something to count on and act like it's a stable thing. — Alexandra Cassavetes

I'm not cynical, but I don't really want to have a boyfriend or husband again. — Alexandra Cassavetes

I will watch a ton of movies while I'm writing for inspiration. "Postcards from the Edge" was one. I love the mother-daughter relationship and all the hard humiliating stuff she has to go through. Or thinks she has to go through. — Zoe Cassavetes

Actresses feel immense pressure to keep up. Nobody wants someone who doesn't know how to market themselves. — Zoe Cassavetes

(Acting) is an extension of life. How you're capable of performing in your life, that's how you're capable of performing on screen. — John Cassavetes

During the actual filming, I'm not really listening to dialogue. I'm watching to see if the actors are communicating something and expressing something. I'm just watching a conversation. You're not aware of exactly what people are saying. You are aware of what they are INTENDING and what kind of feeling is going on in that scene. — John Cassavetes

You can fail in films because you don't have the talent, or you have too much humility, or you lack ferociousness. I'm a gangster. If I want something, I'll grab it. — John Cassavetes

People don't know what they are doing most of the time. They don't know what they want. It's only in 'the movies' that they know what their problems are and have game plans to deal with them. — John Cassavetes

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 Rowlands

I think I probably have the philosophy of a poor man. You know, like maybe I'd steal the pennies off a dead man's eyes. — John Cassavetes

By the age of 50, I would like to know that I'm not dead - that there's some continuity to my life. — John Cassavetes

People who are making films today are too concerned with mechanics - technical things instead of feeling. — John Cassavetes

I've never seen an exploding helicopter. I've never seen anybody go and blow somebody's head off. So why should I make films about them? But I have seen people destroy themselves in the smallest way, I've seen people withdraw, I've seen people hide behind political ideas, behind dope, behind the sexual revolution, behind fascism, behind hypocrisy, and I've myself done all these things. So I can understand them. What we are saying is so gentle. It's gentleness. We have problems, terrible problems, but our problems are human problems. — John Cassavetes

I'm not complaining about my life; every moment of it has been fantastic, and I'm so lucky. — Zoe Cassavetes

I'm not good at comparing and contrasting. I take what's in front of me for what it is, although I guess there's something about Paul's realistic writing that is like Cassavetes. — John Cassavetes

We do have a problem in this country. You can either make a movie and ignore that, or you can acknowledge it and say, this is the water that we're living in. You know this - the movie lives in this - it's centered around this particular problem, and I chose to acknowledge it. — Nick Cassavetes

We only have two hours to change people's lives. — John Cassavetes

'Faces' became more than a film. It became a way of life, a film against the authorities and the powers that prevent people from expressing themselves the way they want to, something that can't be done in America, that can't be done without money. — John Cassavetes

I won't make shorthand films, because I don't want to manipulate audiences into assuming quick, manufactured truths. — John Cassavetes

My all-time favorites that I always go back to are films by the director John Cassavetes. The movies he made, the work he left behind, have been a big influence for my work. — Nina Hoss

I'd rather do 'She's So Lovely' that John Cassavetes wrote versus doing 'Batman.' — Robin Wright

As an artist, I feel that we must try many things - but above all we must dare to fail. — John Cassavetes

The greatest location in the world is the human face. — John Cassavetes

Work very very hard. This business is no joke. Make sure you know what you want or you might be taking someone else's view instead of your own. — Zoe Cassavetes

I like to give my actors a lot of room. — Nick Cassavetes

I'm very worried about the depiction of women on the screen. It's gotten worse than ever and it's related to their being either high- or low-class concubines, and the only question is when or where they will go to bed, with whom, and how many. There's nothing to do with the dreams of women, or of woman as the dream, nothing to do with the quirky part of her, the wonder of her. — John Cassavetes