Richard LaGravenese Quotes

With network, shows are pulled half the time after three episodes whether they're good or they're not good. It's a numbers game. With cable, they can take a lot more liberties.

The network shows tend to be run, in general, in my experience, by committee, and it's hard for actors and writers to do their jobs.

All good actors are unpredictable, and a little crazy in a good way, because they feel more secure playing other people than themselves.

TV feels quite constipated, and the thing I find particularly difficult is the branding of the channels where it's not 'Is it a good script?' but 'Is it a BBC2 script?'

As long as there's really good actors that use their clout to support fringe films, whatever genre it is, they'll still get made.

I always thought it would be funny to have the Parents Television Council write an episode of 'Family Guy' and give them full creative control. Then see how good the episode is. That's something we've actually discussed in the writers' room. We haven't proposed it yet, but if somebody from the PTC reads this, it might be worth discussing.

'True Blood' is shot on film. It's more like a movie, and they take more days to shoot it, plus it has an hour of content. 'The Good Wife' is network. They're shooting on HD. It moves quicker and they only have forty minutes of content instead of a full hour. Not to mention the difference of shooting, you know, rated-R stuff!

In my estimation, the only thing that is more to be guarded against than bad taste is good taste.

There is nothing we can't do. So it's just the fact that we're doing topics like that that other people, especially network TV, won't touch, that we're satirists.

I'd like to do a little bit more adventurous TV. Maybe Showtime or HBO or just a little bit edgier. But I would go back to NBC, CBS, whatever.

I don't feel that as an artist my job is to offer PR propaganda, whether for the good or for the bad.

The thing about TV is it's a meritocracy. I love that aspect of it - and I've had shows that have gone on the air and been canceled. I've seen the good and the bad of it.

There's a good many pictures I'd like to make; we'll see how many I'll be allowed to make.

If you're on a network show, it's either some wacky sitcom or a drama where you're servicing a procedure.

For me, I think there's a lot more room in cable television to tell broader stories. NBC and the networks, they're all very mainstream, and they're a little more conservative in how they approach storytelling.

Cable TV has become where the best actors, writers and directors have gone to work because they are allowed to do character-driven stories.

And I maintain good relationships with all the studios so I've never been bullied into any cut, frankly.

As actors, if you get a pilot on HBO or on USA, your odds are good that it's going to get picked up.

The good thing about being on a show like 'Justified' is that you stick to the premise, but not necessarily every single word that's on the page.

It used to be that you had to do a certain number of episodes to hit syndication in order to try to keep a show on, because it's important to the network because it sells good commercial time. That's really not how HBO does things.

One of the problems with 'SNL' is that, if you tried to adlib, the director would put you off camera and off the mic, so only you would know that you ever did it. The director always directed to the script; he wasn't listening to what you were doing. He was calling shots whilst looking at the page.

The great thing about working in cable is that, since the season is truncated - we only do 12 shows - the writers are more at ease in terms of mapping out the trajectory of the story and the characters.

Television will always err on the side of making something not quite as classy as it could be.

It's really frustrating when you write a show and it's really funny and someone and from Standards and Decency says, 'You can't put that in because it has a naughty word.'

Working in network sitcom arenas, whenever you decide to depart from the norm and tell a story that's not typical, I think you're always a little bit nervous.