Question: The story behind his quote regarding Ricardo Montalban.
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Archived from the IMDb Discussion Forums — John Cassavetes
mountainjam819 — 12 years ago(June 09, 2013 10:55 AM)
"Ricardo Montalban is to improvisational acting what Mount Rushmore is to animation."
Pardon my ignorance, but what is the story behind this quote (if there is one)? Why such a quote about Montalban, of all actors? I'm assuming Cassavetes and Montalban worked together at one point? Reading this, out of context, sounds like a dig at Montalban. -
rarebird-1 — 11 years ago(August 05, 2014 12:37 AM)
I don't know if it is a dig but John liked his actors to improvise (which may speak to why Falk was so good in his movies). Ricardo did not improvise but preferred direction, which may be a result of English being a second language. John May have found that Ricardo was not quite at ease with improvisation.
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MortSahlFan — 11 years ago(January 23, 2015 09:33 AM)
actually Peter Falk (and Gena Rowlands) didn't like to improvise. Cassavetes made them better actors. They worked with the confines of the script, but wanted the actor to do the rest, to find the character, to be the character.