Umpaloompas & Kubrick: Underbelly's Peter Scarf Shares His Coachella Stories
Photo by Ivana Rose
Interview; Leila Antakly
Peter Scarf is a man who operates at the intersection of gritty drama and surreal desert festivals. Currently starring in Australia’s highest-rating drama, Underbelly: The Golden Mile, he is a familiar face to millions. But off-screen, Scarf is the creative engine behind the camera—a writer, director, and producer who co-helmed the film Fortune and is adapting Andrew Wilson's novel The Lying Tongue. So, how does an artist with such serious credits unwind? By diving headfirst into the glorious chaos of Coachella. From hugging Umpa Loompas after a spin on the Gravitron to finding zen in the middle of an LCD Soundsystem mosh pit, his experience was anything but ordinary. We sat down with this incredibly down-to-earth multi-hyphenate (and brother to Angelina) to talk about his greatest inspirations—from his mother to Leonard Cohen—and the wild, musical surprises that fuel his creative fire.
Q: How does living in L.A affect your creativity as a film maker?
Being around people who live and breath film everyday means that there is a shorthand to filmspeak and an innate understanding of process, character, structure, and 'the biz'. Then again, LA reminds you that this is a dollars and cents industry and there are few who care about anything but putting bums on seats for 90mins at a time buying popcorn and soda. In LA, unlike in Australia, people are looking for a breakout, for a 'story'- they want you to do well because it works for them on the other side of it and they know that. Most importantly, people in LA make you feel like literally anything is possible (even if they are lying to your face which so many do) - and that helps creativity as it demolishes all limits. In New York, it's real and you feel shit cause people are harsh and direct and straight... whereas in LA people tell you what you want to hear... And you feel great in the moment but you end up waiting by the phone in the hope that people will do what they say they will do. I have definitely gone off subject here. What was the question again?
Challenges of what you do?
Patience. Discipline. Believing. Trusting instincts. Deciding and committing. Managing expectations. No different to life generally
Dream collaboration or project would be?
A low budget two hander w a guy and girl that I shoot myself - super rough, intimate, and emotionally complex. Most likely uncommercial
To write a thriller for Polanski.
Anything else ?
"Life is short, art is long, opportunity fleeting" - can't remember who said that - Hippocrates? Socrates? One of those wise Greeks.
ps1
