Laura Harrington

Laura Harrington’s experience is wide ranging. For more than 35 years, she has worked as a professional actress and writer with the most highly acclaimed actors, producers and directors in the entertainment business. On film, on Broadway and in television, Laura has acted with Al Pacino, Keanu Reeves, Johnny Depp, Leonardo DiCaprio, Juliette Lewis, Jared Leto, Ralph Waite, Richard Thomas, Peter Weller, John C. Reilly and Ellen Barkin and was directed by Stephen King, Lasse Hallstrom, Taylor Hackford, Martha Coolidge and Jan Egelson, among others.  

As a writer, she was first hired to write a film about the Dixie Mafia for Martin Scorsese and Barbara DeFina at Miramax and continued writing for Elton John’s Rocket Pictures, MGM, Sony, Disney (with Gore Verbinski), Paramount, Universal, Focus Features (where she was paired with George Clooney), Warner Brothers (with Akiva Goldsman’s Weed Road Pictures), The Jim Henson company (with Michael London), Kathy Shulman at Welle Entertainment. She recently finished The Ninth Fortress, a film about the holocaust for Mark Burton and Santa Muerte for the Italian production company Frame By Frame. In television, she has been awarded for writing the Lifetime movie Faith Under Fire and is currently developing two series projects, Girls of Murder City and Pirate Reede.

For the past five years, while continuing to write professionally, Laura has proudly become an instructor of screenwriting, for both graduates and undergraduates, at the renowned Loyola Marymount School of Film and Television in Los Angeles. Passing on her skill and knowledge to other writers giving imagination, voice and meaning to their own stories, has been an unexpected joy.

What Students Are Saying…

“Laura was the best professor I've had in screenwriting thus far. She paid close attention to my work and showed she cared about each of our stories and got to know them intimately. She pushed me to understand the process of shaping a script with depth and emotion.”

“I found Laura’s one-on-one feedback and engagement incredibly beneficial. Her constructive criticism, ability to communicate, and willingness to help me work through story complications has been inspiring.”

“This felt like a perfect bootcamp training. The amount of knowledge I gained from this workshop cannot be understated. I not only learned a ton about writing a script and its structure, but also a lot about the movie business.”

“Laura Harrington is intelligent and passionate, and she gave me constructive feedback through every single step of the creative process, including thorough and detailed walkthroughs on how to improve my work.”

“Laura’s class gave me a strong understanding of the fundamentals of feature film writing. I learned how to properly structure a feature, develop authentic characters with depth, and explore powerful themes through conflict. But above all, I learned to write with courage, explore vulnerable parts of myself I feared in the past, and trust my voice. With that, I can confidently say that this class not only changed me as a filmmaker but as a human being as well.”

“Laura’s class solidified my aspirations to become a professional screenwriter. Before, I was insecure that I'd ever be able to write something remotely valuable. Now, I long for the day I'll report back to her with a success story. ”