Gena Rowlands Quotes
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John [Cassavetes] loved actors. He gave them a lot of freedom. So if something came up that a certain actor just felt at the moment and said - that kind of improvisation he would accept. He gave very little direction.
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When I went to my parents I was at the University of Wisconsin, and I just couldn't wait anymore to go be an actress.
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Bette Davis had very strong opinions and was not afraid to express them. She wasn't afraid of anything that I ever saw. And she was so funny. She's just funny and she was laughing all the time.
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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".
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I'd wanted to be [an actress] all my life.
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I think that I was lucky to have that period of time [ like coming to New York] because everything was so exciting and new.
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I read the script of [Woman Under the Influence ] 50 times. And I thought about it. And then I did it.
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Of course I would change anything if John Cassavetes said so - it's his script. But he was very easy about that.
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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.
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If I have something I like to forget, then I forget it.
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People in independent film have a passion; they're not in it for the money.
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I got a part opposite Edward G. Robinson in a play called Middle of The Night, which Paddy Cheyafsky had written. It played for a long time because everybody just loved Edward G. Robinson, everybody in New York wanted to see it. John and I were married at the time and put into a position where I was working very long evening hours and he was working in the daytime and so there was a lot of spare time.
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I went to the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, which was in Carnegie Hall, which itself was exciting - just to walk into it.
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When I was in Middle of The Night, MGM came and offered me a contract and I said that when I got out of the play, I'd like to try it. I didn't know anything about making movies but I was certainly finding it interesting.
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I love independent filmmaking. I don't agree with a lot of it, but that's the point.
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So I went home and I told my mom that I wanted to quit and be an actress and she said, “Huh, that sounds fascinating. It’s wonderful!” And I told my father and he literally said, “I don’t care if you want to be an elephant trainer if it makes you happy.”
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Of course, much easier to do a film when you're doing an extremely emotional part than it is doing it onstage over and over especially.
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It was a period when live TV was just starting and getting popular and they took it seriously too. Not so much like TV now. They did Hemingway and Faulkner - and they’re all wonderful artists and it just was very creative at that time.
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After you play a part, you think of it as your own.
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So many people mistakenly think that the rest of his [John Cassavetes] pictures and the ones we did were improvised, which isn't true. He wrote all the rest of them.
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Never in my life have I ever even thought about anything else [ being anything other than an actress].
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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.
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I 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.
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So after the Shadows he acted and directed. And it worked out very nicely. And he wrote, obviously.
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He[John Cassavetes] was just being an actor. A very successful actor, especially in live TV. He did many wonderful performances.
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A Woman Under the Influence was my favorite. I loved doing that. And it was challenging.
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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.
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You just can't complain about being alive. It's self-indulgent to be unhappy. When asked how she has coped since husband's death.
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I think I have the only parents in the world who would not have said something against become an actress.
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[John Cassavetes] came backstage afterwards and introduced himself and we talked a bit, and then went for a little coffee at the Russian Tea Room next door. It just...started.
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