Cassavetes worked on his actors’ emotions. Another technique he employed was to give actors conflicting directions in certain scenes or to put them in slightly different emotional states. Goldoni tells how, for the sidewalk scene with Tony Ray, while Tony was given his lines in advance, she received hers at the last possible minute, just before shooting began – which then made his performance more confident and hers more tentative. In the scene in which Ben returns with the apartment keys following his fight with Hugh, Cassavetes privately gave contradictory directions to each actor – a technique he would occasionally employ in subsequent films.