Seymour Cassel is still growing into roles

Actor Seymour Cassel had just tucked himself into a booth at Hollywood's venerable Musso & Frank Grill when he was reminded of an interview he did in the same spot for Rolling Stone magazine in 1972, alongside John Cassavetes, the iconic filmmaker with whom he is most closely associated. Like the restaurant, Cassel, now 74, may be older but seems remarkably unchanged.

His unpredictable, live-wire energy, such a trademark from his roles for Cassavetes, was going full throttle. Cassel, who came to Hollywood in 1961, has a way with an anecdote and can drop some pretty impressive names -- there was the time, for example, when he introduced Charles Bukowski to Johnny Cash at Barney's Beanery -- and he manages to make it all sound plausible.

"I am a performer, that's what I like to do," he said. "I'm performing here with you, telling you truthful things. It's all performing, that's what we do in life. We talk, we look and we hear and we listen. Your life is a performance."

For that performance, Cassel was given a lifetime achievement award on Friday night at the second Downtown Film Festival. The event coincided with the festival's centerpiece gala screening of "Reach for Me," a new drama featuring Cassel in the lead role as an aging man adjusting to life in a hospice. The film, directed by LeVar Burton, costars Alfre Woodard, Adrienne Barbeau, Burton and Lacey Chabert.

Cassel's acting roots go back to the early days of the American independent movement. He was a key collaborator on a number of Cassavetes' best-known films, include "Shadows," "Faces," "Minnie and Moskowitz," "The Killing of a Chinese Bookie" and "Love Streams." He has worked with dozens of other filmmakers through the years, including appearances in three of filmmaker Wes Anderson's movies, "Rushmore," "The Royal Tenenbaums" and "The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou."

When "Faces" premiered at the Venice Film Festival more than 40 years ago, it walked away with multiple awards. Cassel was nominated for a supporting actor Oscar and won a supporting actor prize from the National Society of Film Critics. Andrew Sarris, reviewing the film in the Village Voice, wrote at the time, " 'Faces' emerges for me as the revelation of 1968. . . . 'Faces' not only works, it soars."

"John's films had the depth of character," said Cassel of what has made Cassavetes' work so vital and full of life, even years later. "Performance is performance, but you have to have the depth. And it shows; it makes it real. Even though the dialogue is there, you want it to be natural."