Since Cassavetes' death, Cassel could be considered a stalwart of American indies. We met on July 13 for an hour at the Hotel International in Prague on his way through after the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival.
Independent film is film that has thought in it.
There's no independent thought in studio films. It's collective thought. These things you get from Hollywood are no more than computer games, where you might as well have a little wired handset that you could blow up this truck if you want instead of that one, that would at least allow audience participation. With independent film, simply because they don't have the money to make a big budget film, they're forced to make a story that's important to them, that they would like to see on film, a personal story that people can relate to, about people, where you can see the love of the characters. That's true of the best films I've done, certainly Cassavetes's films.