Richard LaGravenese has enjoyed an exemplary fast track screenwriting career in Hollywood. His second produced screenplay, "The Fisher King" (1991), garnered an Oscar nomination for Best Original Screenplay and afforded director Terry Gilliam a solid critical and commercial success. LaGravenese served as producer on "The Ref" (1994), the third film to spring from his script, while his next three efforts, "A Little Princess", "Unstrung Heroes" and "The Bridges of Madison County" (all 1995), won him widespread critical acclaim.

On developing a Story:

I’m still learning on how to reveal a story and not give it all away at the first, in the first half.

On Quentin Tarantino:

Well listen, Quentin is enormously talented. i’ve known him since before “Reservoir Dogs”. What I find he teaches me, and the great thing to learn from Quentin is the way he holds himself as an artist. He is his own audience. He loves movies and he writes and creates movies for him. But because he loves movies he’s also an audience. So he’s making them for an audience as well, but that’s not his viewpoint, he just makes what he loves and what he sees is right, and lets himself … he’s bold in that and it’s a great thing. And I think he can really … he’s a talented writer. I think a lot of the movie. I think what’s brilliant about the movie is brilliant and what’s indulgent about the movie is indulgent. You know, I don’t think it’s any indication of his talent, I think it’s just a process he’s going through and this is what he had to create now. Umm, it will be interesting to see what he will do in the future. He says that the reason he’s still writing about crime and all that stuff is because his life experience has been limited. He’s still sort of a kid so that’s what he is writing about. But he says, as he lives more, will explore deeper themes and stuff like that.

On THE REF:

 “The Ref” was a personal movie because my sister-in-law, Marie, and my brother-in-law Jeff … it was Marie’s idea, it was a family thing, they were trying to get something going and so I guaranteed it for Disney which meant that I would guarantee my sister-in-law to write this screenplay and if they would give her a shot to write the first draft and then if they needed me they would bring me in as the next … as the writer, and I guaranteed myself to do that, which made the project. We just stuck it as part of my deal at Disney, because I was under contract there, so that’s … that was the beginning of it and then it just got more, and more and more. I wound up taking over the writing and, ahh, and then Dennis [Leary] came on and just sort of took off.

Richard LaGravenese Talks 'Beautiful Creatures'

Source: http://scripteach.com/?page_id=112