SEYMOUR CASSEL: THE ACTOR
By Jim Healy

An Italian-translated version of this interview originally appeared in a book co-edited by Jim Healy and Emanuela Martini, published in conjunction with the John Cassavetes retrospective at the 2007 Torino Film Festival. Seymour Cassel will appear in person in the Dryden on May 16 and 17, following screenings of Faces and The Killing of a Chinese Bookie.

Audiotaping an interview with the garrulous, demonstrative Seymour Cassel for later transcription can be a problematic task. A born performer, Cassel always illustrates his stories and reminiscences with little bits of pantomime and physical shtick, which includes dead-on impersonations of his friends and co-stars like Peter Falk and John Cassavetes.

Almost literally born into show business, Cassel’s mother was a burlesque dancer with the famous Minsky’s showgirls and at age four, he would participate in on-stage antics with baggy-pants comics. A notorious ladies man, Cassel has linked his obsession with the fairer sex to his upbringing: “I saw more naked breasts before the age of four than most men see in their lifetime!”

His mother’s career kept Cassel steadily on the road as a child. When she married a career military man, Cassel spent a brief part of his adolescence in Panama City. When she divorced, she brought the young Seymour home to Detroit, MI where his dalliances with juvenile delinquency ultimately led to his joining the U.S. navy.

Released from the service, he went to New York to pursue a career as an actor in the mid 1950s. He studied briefly with Stella Adler until he discovered the acting workshop co-founded by John Cassavetes and Burton Lane. Looking for a free scholarship, Cassel made a lifelong friend and collaborator in Cassavetes, who immediately put Cassel to work as a crew member on SHADOWS.

Cassavetes proved to be Cassel’s patron saint and main mentor as the young actor entered show business. For most of the next ten years, Cassel’s was primarily employed as a crew member and/or performer in Cassavetes’ film and television work, culminating in an Academy Award-nominated performance in FACES and his first leading role opposite Gena Rowlands in MINNIE AND MOSKOWITZ.

Although he continued to work with Cassavetes on such projects as THE KILLING OF A CHINESE BOOKIE and LOVE STREAMS, Cassel developed enough clout to attract the attention of filmmakers like Ken Russell, Don Siegel, and Sam Peckinpah, with whom he was also very close. After Cassavetes’ death in 1989, Cassel found work on studio projects directed by the likes of Adrian Lyne, Andrew Bergman, Barry Levinson, and Wes Anderson, who has cast Cassel in three of his features.

But it was his work for Cassavetes and his leading turn opposite Steve Buscemi in the 1992 feature IN THE SOUP that has made him much in demand for roles in independent features. An outspoken proponent for the rights of actors, he’s currently campaigning to become president of the Screen Actors Guild from his home in Santa Monica, CA.

JIM HEALY: How did you come to work on Shadows?

SEYMOUR CASSEL: They had already started on the movie when I showed up [at the workshop] looking for the free scholarship, which meant John just let me come for free. He paid for the space for the school in the Variety Arts building and his partner, Burt Lane, ran the school. Through the improvisations in the class with Leilia [Goldoni] and Ben Carruthers, John had already developed the story of the movie. He probably had it in his head all along that he wanted to direct a movie, because he was frustrated as an actor. So he went on Jean Shepherd’s radio show, said he was making the movie and asked for investors. He got over a $1,000! With that, he bought more film. But when I showed up, he took me in his office and talked with me for an hour and I told him my life story.

JH: What did you learn from being a crew member on Shadows and Faces?

SC: I learned I didn’t want to do that! Seriously, first thing I learned was how to load a 16mm magazine in a black bag. Then I learned to thread the camera with it, then pull focus, how to operate a boom. The torturous part was during editing. We shot so much film.

We had to do it that way, but it taught me a lot about film. Everyone got to operate the camera a little bit too. There was always a job for someone and no one was expendable. One day during Faces, a camera operator was playing basketball on one of the breaks and he tore his Achilles tendon, so from then on, he became a loader.

JH: I get the feeling there was a little bit of bluff involved that helped you enter the movie business.

SC: There’s always a lot of bluff involved, especially in this business and John recognized this in me. He was also mischievous and I had that and he sensed that in me.

Once we were in the White Elephant Bar in London and a couple of producers would come in and John would ask them to sit down. They asked, “You got any scripts you’re working on.” John would say, “Yes, I’ve got this one thing.” And he’d look at me [eyes dart suspiciously] because he knew I knew he was lying and he’d make it up.

JH: You were in London when Shadows was first released there?

SC: Yes, ’60 or ’61. John and I had been in Ireland where we had been in a movie [the Ted Allan scripted The Webster Boy], John bought two round-trip first-class tickets. Al [Ruban], [Maurice] Mo McEndree, and myself, we went out drinking to different bars and we wind up at Downey’s. It’s getting along to four in the morning and John asked Mo if he wanted to go to Europe with him and Mo said no. John asked me and I said sure. But I was working on a Playhouse 90 directed by Sidney Lumet. I had about six lines and I was supposed to be at work the next day. We went back to my place and John fell asleep on the couch and I packed a bag. When I woke him up, I said, “Let’s go.” We go to the airport and I called Playhouse 90 to tell them to recast me. I went to London and we were in the hotel for a couple of days and we went on to Ireland where I got a part in the movie.

Then, it was Easter time and we had four days off. John said, “Gena and I are going to Paris.” I said, “Great, I’ve never been to Paris.” “No Gena and I are going.” I said, “Fine, I can get another hotel room.” “I’m not taking you to Paris with me.” I said, “What do you think I want to do, stay here in Ireland? They don’t fuck, I mean, they’re religious as hell!”

I stayed behind in Europe. I cashed in my first class TWA return ticket for a coach and I spent the money and got a place on the Right Bank in Paris. It was lucky I stayed over. I eventually went back to London because I could speak the language and thought I could get a job. I was staying at Ted Allan’s place when I got a call from Penelope Houston at Sight and Sound. She called me on a Friday and she said [affecting British accent], “Do you have the print of Shadows?”

“No, don’t you have it?”

“No, and you know the movie shows on Monday.”

I called John in California and said “Where’s the print of Shadows? It shows here on Monday.”

He said, “Oh fuck, I forgot!” He had to put it on a plane.

But David Robinson in the Financial Times wrote a great review and we got a distribution deal with the Boulting Brothers who had their own theater.

JH: Did you like working with Bobby Darin on Too Late Blues.

SC: Yes. He wanted to do everything because he knew he was going to die early, because of the heart thing he had. John liked Bobby. He didn’t want Bobby for that movie, he wanted Montgomery Clift and Gena [instead of Stella Stevens]. Clift had had an accident and he was also a drinker, so that was a problem for the studio.

Stella was a nice girl. Marty Rankin, the head of the studio, was one of her boyfriends. She got better as she got older, especially in the Peckinpah film [The Ballad of Cable Hogue].

JH: What do you remember about Cassavetes’ studio experience making Too Late Blues.

SC: I forget the name of the cameraman, the guy who shot it, old-time cameraman [Lionel Lindon] and John wanted a different set-up. The cameraman said, “What do you want me to do, drill a hole in the fucking floor?” and John said “No, just put the camera down and I’ll shoot it myself.”

JH: He wanted to follow the actors around more easily…

SC: Well, actors tell your story. Hopefully the writer is there when you do it and Johnny was, so if there was a problem, he could re-write the scene. Then he got to know his actors as people. In Faces, when I’m singing to the girls, John knew he had no money for music rights, and John knew I was doing rap music before they even thought of it, so I just did it: [sings] “Put on the red meat, Mama/Don’ want no taters, no onions…” It was loosey-goosey kind-of stuff. The ‘Mechanical Man’ he told me to do because he saw me do it before. My biggest thrill was to entertain him as well as the actors I worked with because he would stand right next to the camera going [covering his mouth, suppressing a laugh]. He taught me how to incorporate myself in my work. I grew up watching people. I was always an astute observer and John taught me how to use that too.

JH: So, even before you met Cassavetes, what drew you to performing was a need to represent the behavior you had seen?

SC: Yeah, but I wanted to be loved and liked too, and I knew if I could do things people liked, they’d like me.

JH: Did you want to be famous too?

SC: No, I didn’t care about fame. Before I got nominated for the Oscar for Faces, while we were cutting the movie, John said, “See, you’re going to win an Oscar. I’m telling you.” He was so happy when I got nominated and he was happy for Lynn [Carlin] too. We were supposed to go to the awards together, but the day of the show, I called him and he said he couldn’t come. It dawned on me that he didn’t give a shit that he got nominated [for a best screenplay Oscar]. He always gave to his actors. He was really phenomenal that way.

John’s passion was to be able to make movies his way. It’s easy to get people to believe in you when you do the kind of work he did from Shadows to Faces. Benny and Peter never worked for John and they saw Faces and came to him. He then told them he had a story about four guys: one dies and the story is about the other three guys. Peter saw Faces and he said [imitating Falk] “Jesus Christ! That’s a great movie!” But when he was shooting Husbands, he asked Ben Gazzara, “Do you know what the fuck John is talking about? Do you know what he’s saying? Would you tell me because I don’t know what the fuck he wants!”

JH: He seldom talked to actors about their characters during production.

SC: That’s true, but I don’t think [Falk] was used to John’s way of shooting. During Husbands, he was very insecure. By the time he did A Woman Under the Influence, John got Peter to stop worrying about his glass eye, because he needed to shoot him a certain way.

JH: Your character in Faces is almost a symbol for a generation, a hippie prototype, if maybe a bit older than the average hippie.

SC: My hair wasn’t as long then [in 1965 when the movie was shot]. When it came out [in 1968], that [the hippie youth movement] was all happening.

JH: Your character, Chettie, seems to be a bit of you and a bit of Cassavetes rolled into one. He doesn’t live by any rules, especially when it comes to women, yet he’s the moral center of the film.

SC: He has a morality, but there’s nothing immoral about wanting to get laid. He cares about [Lynn Carlin’s character] and the other women in the story. John was one of the most compassionate people who understood the humanity that each person had. His ear was so good too. He could see the way people would not react to each other or the way they would be abrupt with each other or maybe he could sense it.

John and I were together once and we saw Raul Julia and his wife and John told me he could see that she was in a lot of pain. He told me he’d catch up with me and he went and talked with them for about an hour. He said he knew that they weren’t communicating and they were such lovely people. He was amazing at that.

JH: You’ve also said he was superstitious.

SC: He’s a Greek and they’re superstitious gamblers. I remember calling him in Rome from the Venice Film Festival where Faces was showing and I told him to come up because I thought we were going to win awards. He said, “No, I have to work.” He was superstitious because I had been in Venice in ’61 with Shadows by myself when that won. He went to Berlin and wins there for A Woman Under the Influence but I couldn’t go. He took Gena. He goes there a second time with Gena for Love Streams and he calls me and says, “Sey, you should’ve heard the fucking audience when you came on, the applause!”

I said, “Why didn’t you take me.”

He says, “Well, I’ve got my wife.”

I said, “You’re superstitious, you cocksucker!” [laughs]

Greeks are unbelievable. It’s not like John wouldn’t step on a crack or any of that shit, but he loved to roll the dice. John was crazy in a way, a wonderful crazy, and so was I. There are stories I can’t tell about John, you know. Not while Gena is still alive.

JH: I understand there were times when you had to take the blame for things that weren’t always your fault.

SC: I always got blamed. We’d go out to the Lakers Game and he even lied about that. He’d tell me he had tickets for the game, but he wouldn’t show them to me. When we got to the game, he said, “just follow me,” so I knew something was up. We’re sitting right on the court, where the visiting team sits. When I asked where he got the tickets, he says, “I won ‘em in a raffle.”

I say, “I’m not Gena. You may have told her that, but you didn’t get these tickets in a raffle.”

He says, “Oh yeah I did.” They were like $150/$200 tickets.

We’d go out after the game some nights and be out late. I’d pick him up and drop him off. One time, the next day I called and Gena said to me, “Seymour, I don’t want you coming into this house any more.” And she hung up. So for a while, when I’d call John and Gena would answer, I’d hang up.

JH: How long did that go on for?

SC: For a while. When we had softball practice, he’d say, “Don’t worry, I’ll meet you at the bottom of the driveway.” Finally, one night when I picked him up, I said, “What the fuck is wrong with you? Can’t you tell her that you were the one who kept me out late? Just once?”

He said, “What? And have her be mad at me?

JH: Speaking of sports, the subject runs through some of Cassavetes movies. There’s the baseball team in Too Late Blues and the basketball discussions in Husbands.

SC: We played sports all the time. Back in New York in Central Park, we used to play Puerto Ricans up at 102nd and 5th – hardball. That’s how I got Al (Ruban) involved. He was working at a garage near Carnegie Hall and I got him to come play for us. He was the third baseman. We’d play the Puerto Ricans for a couple of cases of beer and if they didn’t win, they’d run. If we lost, they’d stay and we’d have to buy them a couple cases. John loved ball – football, basketball, all of the sports. We’d play in the rain against Columbia students.

When shooting Faces, [John] had a basketball court right outside his living room. We’d have a quick lunch, shoot some hoops, then we’d film again.

JH: Was Cassavetes very competitive?

SC: He was very competitive. He taught me how to play chess when we were cutting Shadows on 63rd, just off Madison. We played waiting for other editors to show up. He beat me over and over again and he said he didn’t want to play me any more. I said “why?”

“Because you’re no good.”

“Yes, but I’m getting better.” So I went down to the village on weekends to the park.

JH: To practice?

SC: Yeah, and I played these guys there and about six weeks later, I said [to Cassavetes], “Let’s play some chess. I think I’m better.” And I beat him.

He said, “Let’s play another,” and I beat him again. He wanted to play again and I said, “No, you gotta practice a little bit.” That’s how competitive he always was.

JH: Why do you think Cassavetes was such a contrarian, so argumentative?

SC: Because people carry their attitudes and beliefs like they were written in gold. If you’re a street-smart kid, you say, ‘are you kidding me?” and John was good at picking up on that stuff, and he could bullshit with the best of them. He would argue a lot. Gena almost didn’t marry him because he was so jealous.

JH: What are your memories of making Minnie and Moskowitz?

SC: We had just finished a scene and John went up to a grip and asked him what he thought of the scene. The grip said, “it was great, John!”

John says, “Yeah, Gena was good, but Seymour was a little weak.” He was doing it to bug my ass because he knew I could hear everything he said!

JH: Al Ruban thinks that the one thing wrong with Minnie and Moskowitz is that you never see the two main characters having actual sex, consummating their relationship.

SC: Well, that’s because John didn’t trust me![laughs] The scene at the Palomino where we’re dancing and I dip her, Gena opened her mouth and I went in. After the scene, John didn’t say shit, he didn’t care, but Gena gave it to me, so I took it. [laughs]

JH: Was Cassavetes squeamish about showing erotic intimacy?

SC: He didn’t like to really show it. You could know it without seeing it. Like in Faces when you see me and Lynn Carlin the morning after.

JH: What was it like to work with Timothy Carey?

SC: John loved Tim Carey. Tim was great. He was wild and there were times you had to watch him. I asked Gadge [Elia Kazan] why he never used him again after East of Eden. He said he almost broke Jimmy [Dean]’s arm. He was playing a bouncer and he was trying to throw Jimmy out – that was his job. Brando used him in One Eyed Jacks. In Killing of a Chinese Bookie he wore editing gloves for his performance.

John shot lots of footage on Tim, just to see what he would do and he came up with weird stuff like his lines about his elbows getting fat in Minnie and Moskowitz.

Tim gave John a German shepherd and John said he didn’t want it, so Tim said, “No, it’s a great dog. He’s a watchdog. Look, he’s not afraid of guns.” And he shot a gun off over the dogs head. John said, “Ok, I’ll take the dog!”

JH: Can you talk about your experience with Sam Peckinpah?

SC: Sam was a conniving son of a bitch. I mean, I loved him. I drank with him. We went to Bogota together. We were going to do a movie from a book called Snowblind. We were going to write the script together, but it got all screwed up. He was a maverick. Sam was a loner more than John was.

JH: How do you feel about New York vs. California living?

SC: I love it here, and I love New York too, but you can’t make a living in the theater and tickets are so expensive - $100 for good seats! It’s too expensive to live there now. The city is so crowded. My apartment on 46th between 9th and 10th was $40 a month. I had a bedroom, a kitchen, and a living room on the ground floor. Richard Hepburn, Kate’s brother, was a playwright and he lived across the hall. I helped him steal a bench from Central Park so we could put in the back of the place. We drove it up 10th avenue in my car.

JH: When did you first come out to California?

SC: I came out here in ’61 for Too Late Blues and then I came back about a year later. I was thinking, “They’re not actors: Rock Hudson, Robert Wagner, Tab Hunter.” I had worked as an extra on that film [Tab Hunter] did with Sophia Loren [His Kind of Woman]. He didn’t know what the fuck he was doing. Acting is as complicated as you make it and the more simple you make it, the better you’re going to be. If you take your time, have fun and enjoy what you’re doing, you’ll make it interesting for yourself, then the other actors pay attention and the words mean something now, because they mean something to you. You can’t make it as laborious as all that.

John taught me a lesson. You can steal anything you want, just make it better when you steal it. I just did that on a movie I just shot on Staten Island and it’s called Staten Island. The director gave me tapes with Charlie Chaplin. I play a deaf mute and I don’t talk in the whole movie and I’m one of the leads. Since I couldn’t speak, I ended up taking the famous globe ballet from The Great Dictator for a scene when I win a trifecta.

John was the closest friend I ever had, plus he was like an older brother.