Quotes by Richard Lagravenese - Page 1

My true nature, I believe, is writing.
Richard Lagravenese / Screenwriter
True Nature
Copy Quote
The South is like a foreign country to me!
Richard Lagravenese / Screenwriter
Foreign Country
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Academy Awards don't really solve anything.
Richard Lagravenese / Screenwriter
Academy
Academy Awards
Awards
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I'm tired of doing rewrites for executives.
Richard Lagravenese / Screenwriter
Executives
Tired
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I'm very much interested in doing actual theater.
Richard Lagravenese / Screenwriter
Actual
Copy Quote
It's not uncommon to have chaotic writers' rooms.
Richard Lagravenese / Screenwriter
Chaotic
Rooms
Uncommon
Copy Quote
I've always shot on film, but the times are changing.
Richard Lagravenese / Screenwriter
Film
Shots
Times Are Changing
Shot
Copy Quote
Disney usually doesn't do pitches for original ideas.
Richard Lagravenese / Screenwriter
Original Ideas
Disney
Pitches
Copy Quote
If I can make a living as a writer, I can do anything.
Richard Lagravenese / Screenwriter
Can Do
I Can
Ifs
Copy Quote
'Thelma & Louise' really hit a nerve, and I loved that movie.
Richard Lagravenese / Screenwriter
Louise
Nerve
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I'm not really a believer in romantic, happily-ever-after love stories.
Richard Lagravenese / Screenwriter
Believer
Love Stories
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Even as a kid, I was more enchanted watching Bette Davis than Errol Flynn.
Richard Lagravenese / Screenwriter
Enchanted
Davis
Bette
Copy Quote
There is a musical rhythm to great writing, especially if it's performed correctly.
Richard Lagravenese / Screenwriter
Musical
Rhythm
Correctly
Performed
Copy Quote
'The Last Five Years' was a musical in 2002, and it's a deconstruction of a marriage.
Richard Lagravenese / Screenwriter
Deconstruction
Copy Quote
Nowadays, Skype is a generational way of putting both people on camera at the same time.
Richard Lagravenese / Screenwriter
Skype
Time People Way
Generational
Nowadays
Copy Quote
Women have to take more control of their careers. They can't just wait to be cast in a film.
Richard Lagravenese / Screenwriter
Careers
Film
Waiting
Wait
Copy Quote
My dad was a presence, of course, but he worked nights a lot, and I would only see him one day a week.
Richard Lagravenese / Screenwriter
Nights
Presence
Copy Quote
You can have ambiguity in television that you are not allowed in film... at least in Hollywood studio films.
Richard Lagravenese / Screenwriter
Ambiguity
Studio Films
Copy Quote
I've been a teenager. I even feel like I've been a 16-year-old girl. So I have a lot of voices inside my head!
Richard Lagravenese / Screenwriter
Voices
Copy Quote
I always thought that if you don't feel the breath in the actors' bodies, you lose all the intimacy and truth.
Richard Lagravenese / Screenwriter
Intimacy
Bodies
Copy Quote
I don't want to be a writer where all the characters sound the same. There's a facility in that kind of writing.
Richard Lagravenese / Screenwriter
Facility
Copy Quote
Every marriage is weird! That's what it is - we just all need to start embracing the fact that there is no normal.
Richard Lagravenese / Screenwriter
Embracing
Copy Quote
Sondheim is my god; I love the man. I learned a great deal about writing from his work, his lyrics, and his structure.
Richard Lagravenese / Screenwriter
Sondheim
Structure
Love God Work
Great Deal
Copy Quote
I just really have an affinity for women. Watching them go through journeys is more interesting to me than watching men.
Richard Lagravenese / Screenwriter
Journey
Men
Affinity
Interesting
Men Women Me
Women Men Me
Journeys
Copy Quote
Barbara Stanwyck movies drove me nuts, like 'Ball of Fire' and 'Double Indemnity.' I used to go cuckoo when I would see those films.
Richard Lagravenese / Screenwriter
Barbara
Nuts
Cuckoo
Double
Drove
Copy Quote
Paul Hicks is the only guy The Beatles will allow to arrange, mix and engineer their music, so he did the Cirque du Soleil 'Love' show.
Richard Lagravenese / Screenwriter
Love Music Will
Arrange
Mix
Paul
Copy Quote
Families always have these unspoken dramas, and at holidays, everyone is supposed to sit down and pretend that none of that is going on.
Richard Lagravenese / Screenwriter
Unspoken
Pretend
Dramas
Holidays
None
Supposed
Copy Quote
A friend of mine from college is married to Neil Levy, who started on 'Saturday Night Live' in the early days and is a really great guy and funny writer.
Richard Lagravenese / Screenwriter
Great Guy
Saturday
Saturday Night
Saturday Night Live
Early Days
Neil
Copy Quote
The thing that I love is human behavior - why people do what they do, who they are, and the choices that they make - and that has to always be plot driven.
Richard Lagravenese / Screenwriter
Choices
Driven
Human Behavior
Love Is
Plot
Love Love Is Always
Copy Quote
I tend to believe, when you're in a relationship, if you don't fight, it's not a real relationship. You have to have arguments and tensions, otherwise I don't believe it.
Richard Lagravenese / Screenwriter
Believe
Fighting
Real
Real Relationship
Otherwise
Tensions
Copy Quote
I had to audition as an actor, and I got so tired of doing the same monologues over and over, so I started writing my own, and then I started selling them to other actors.
Richard Lagravenese / Screenwriter
Monologues
Selling
Tired
Audition
Doing My Own Own
Copy Quote
We have people in our lives who help us evolve along the way. If you're lucky, you find someone who evolves along with you, and that's what you call a long-term relationship.
Richard Lagravenese / Screenwriter
Evolve
Long Term
Relationship People Way
Copy Quote
Connie Heermann is a Freedom Writer teacher. I believe she represents the best of what dedicated teachers can be because she chose to serve her students, not her school board.
Richard Lagravenese / Screenwriter
Teacher
Dedicated
School
School Board
Writer
Teachers
Board
Chose
Her
Serve
She
Copy Quote
I think musical theater fans - obsessive fans - are very much like Comic Con fans in our personalities. We're very possessive, and we're very obsessive, and we're very critical. So don't screw with our stuff.
Richard Lagravenese / Screenwriter
Comic
Critical
Fans
Musical
Musical Theater
Obsessive
Possessive
Theater
Con
Personalities
Screw
Copy Quote
How do you survive living in a cell knowing you are innocent? Many of those exonerated whom I have met seem to have a more benign, grateful attitude toward life than those of us who walk free. Many find a religious or spiritual stronghold.
Richard Lagravenese / Screenwriter
Benign
Grateful
Innocent
Cell
Survive
Copy Quote
The real Liberace - and I'll preface this by saying that I didn't know the real one - was a man who didn't come from much. His father left him and his family for another woman. His father was a musician, which I thought was pretty interesting.
Richard Lagravenese / Screenwriter
Another Woman
Musician
Family Man Father
Copy Quote
In 1996, Shakespeare's 'Twelfth Night' was removed from classrooms after a school board passed a 'prohibition of alternative lifestyle instruction' act. Apparently, a young female character disguised as a boy was a danger to the youth of Merrimack, New Hampshire.
Richard Lagravenese / Screenwriter
Character
Danger
Female
Hampshire
Instruction
Lifestyle
New Hampshire
Night
Prohibition
School
School Board
Young
Alternative
Act
After
Boy
Apparently
Board
Classrooms
Disguised
Female Character
Passed
Shakespeare
Twelfth
Copy Quote
When I was young, I had two older sisters, and since I was the youngest in my family, my mom took me around with her all the time. I was forever with her when she was having coffee in the middle of the afternoon with her three sisters. And they would talk about men. I absorbed a lot of that.
Richard Lagravenese / Screenwriter
Men
Mom
Afternoon
Coffee
Time Family Mom
Absorb
Sisters
Family Time Men
Youngest
Copy Quote
You can take the high moral ground intellectually, but if it ever happens to you personally, I don't know that I could honestly say that I wouldn't want to kill someone who took someone away from me. So, it's a rich, fertile ground for great characters and great storytelling. That was the impetus.
Richard Lagravenese / Screenwriter
Character
Moral
Want
Copy Quote
The woman who runs the Pennsylvania Innocence Project told me that there's a man she's been trying to get out of prison for 26 years. Every night before she goes to bed, she thinks, 'What is he doing?' She says you don't sleep. And yet, she has the greatest sense of humor and this light that comes out of her.
Richard Lagravenese / Screenwriter
Every Night
Innocence
Pennsylvania
Sense Of Humor
Runs
Copy Quote
As soon as you're finished shooting, you have to go into the edit room and choose all of the shots that you're going to commit to because the visual effects vendor has to get it because they'll spend months on it. So, you're editing out of sequence before you've gotten a film for the movie and the performances.
Richard Lagravenese / Screenwriter
Commit
Sequence
Shooting
Visual
Edit
Copy Quote
The death penalty issue is obviously a divisive one. But whether one is for or against, you can not deny the basic illogic - if we know the system is flawed, if we know there are innocent people on Death Row, then until the system is reformed, should we not abandon the death penalty to protect those who are innocent?
Richard Lagravenese / Screenwriter
Death
Abandon
Death Penalty
Deny
Flawed
Innocent
Protect
Against
Death People Know
Basic
Divisive
Innocent People
Issue
Obviously
Penalty
Reformed
Row
System
Whether
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The territory has changed, and a lot of really good actors want to do cable series, but they don't necessarily want to do network TV and make the commitment of 22 episodes or whatever. They find that the liberties and the creative freedoms that you get in cable is more interesting to them than the censorship of a network show.
Richard Lagravenese / Screenwriter
Censorship
Commitment
Episodes
Good Actors
Territory
Cable
Freedoms
Liberties
Network
Copy Quote
I tend to believe, when you're in a relationship, if you don't fight, it's not a real relationship. You have to have arguments and tensions, otherwise I don't believe it. My mother always said, "If you don't fight, you can't have a marriage. You have to fight for each other. If you don't know how to fight, relationships tend not to last."
Richard Lagravenese / Screenwriter
Believe
Mother
Real
Copy Quote
. . . I felt that making her one-dimensional would be an insult to the audience, and also not as interesting. All destructive people have an inner side to them, and the more three-dimentional your characters are on screen the more compassion you can open up in an audience . . .. To me, that involves the audience more, it stimulates them and asks more of them.
Richard Lagravenese / Screenwriter
Character
Compassion
People
Copy Quote
It wasn't the intention to do something important, or to even relate about social issues. The ground is so fertile in the justice world, dealing with the death penalty and the Innocence Project, for characters that have a moral ambiguity, which we were both attracted to. It's the idea that everybody has their reasons. Whatever their actions are, whether you agree with them or not, you can understand why they're feeling that way, in terms of racism or even the death penalty.
Richard Lagravenese / Screenwriter
Character
Ideas
Issues
Copy Quote
What I do usually is read the book first, for pleasure, to see if my brain starts connecting with it, as a movie. And then, if I say yes, I read it again, only this time I take a pen and, inside the book, I say, "Okay, this is a scene. I don't need this. I'm going to try this. I'm not going to take this." And then, I use that book like a bible and each chapter heading, I write a menu of what's in that chapter, in case I ever need to reference it. And then, I start to outline and write it. I get in there and it starts to evolve, based on having re-read it again.
Richard Lagravenese / Screenwriter
Book
Brain
Writing
Copy Quote

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Richard Lagravenese Quotes - Page 1

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