This tall (6'4"), handsome supporting player of feature films and TV gradually began playing leading roles in B-movies and the occasional supporting turn in big studio films, but then shifted career tracks to became a very capable director. Scion of maverick independent filmmaker and actor John Cassavetes and actor Gena Rowlands, Cassavetes decided to take acting seriously after injuring himself while on a sports scholarship at Syracuse University. He had previously played a youth in his father's acclaimed "A Woman Under the Influence" (1974) but made his first film as an adult in a small part