By 1956, Cassavetes had begun teaching an alternative to method acting in his own workshop—co-founded with friend Burt Lane in New York City—in which character creation, rather than backstory or narrative requirements, would serve as the basis for performance. Cassavetes was particularly scornful of Lee Strasberg's Method-based Actors Studio, believing that the Method was "more a form of psychotherapy than of acting" which resulted in sentimental cliches and self-indulgent emotion. In contrast to the Actors Studio's "moody, broody anguish," the Cassavetes-Lane approach held that acting should be an expression of creative joy and exuberance, with emphasis put on the character's creation of "masks" in the process of interacting with other characters.