Another difference between the methods of Cassavetes and Strasberg was that Cassavetes studiously shunned group discussions of character. Actors developed their characters separately and even kept secrets from each other about what their character felt, wanted or knew. If two actors discussed their roles with each other, they might unconsciously incorporate each other’s views into their own and play their relationship falsely. Cassavetes wanted his actors to defend independent understandings of experience. One of the practical ramifications of this approach was that in his later films, at the start of the shoot, Cassavetes would promulgate a rule actually forbidding the actors to discuss their characters with each other. They were their characters; they entered into their characters’ viewpoints; they justified their characters’ understandings of life and defended their characters against attacks from others – all of which would be negated by leaving their characters behind ironically to comment on them or analytically discuss them with other actors between scenes. As Gena Rowlands later put it, ‘You were never to talk about your character with other actors. Not a word. Nothing.’