Meet Peter Macaluso | Writer/Director

We had the good fortune of connecting with Peter Macaluso and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Peter, how has your perspective on work-life balance evolved over time?
My work/life balance has changed dramatically over the last fifteen years. I think when I was younger I definitely felt entitled about “deserving” to tell stories for a living. But, the biggest thing that’s changed is realizing that no one is entitled to it, you know? There’s nothing ordained about having the privilege to make a living in the arts. It takes a unique type of mindset to deal with the constant rejection and lack of control that most people face pursuing their goals. I used to want to be a famous filmmaker, but now I couldn’t think of something less appealing than being famous. I’m just hoping to be able to make a movie and for it to go well enough to let me make another and another until I’m dead. 

I honestly think balance is the key to life. I try very hard not to get too high or too low and just kinda go with the flow. There’s a parable about a horse farmer that I think about almost daily. I won’t butcher it here, but the moral of it is that you never really know what’s good or bad in the moment things happen. There is no “good” or “bad” there’s just “is” basically.

Frankly, I don’t know how anyone could have gone through the last ten years and not recalibrated their lives to be more mindful of their present versus always worrying about the future. The world can change so much in a moment and we really have to focus on the positives and push out the negative noise when we can. I try to take a bird’s eye perspective on things as often as I can because it allows me to focus way more on the process of creating than the results I can’t control. I know I’m incredibly lucky to be living in LA and earnestly trying to pursue something like making movies and I remind myself constantly that at the end of the day, we’re all just trying to play pretend.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
I usually say I write horror and rom-coms (sometimes at the same time.) I very much agree with Jordan Peele when he said the difference “is the music.” I try to write about realistic humans regardless of the situation or genre, though. There’s a quote I love about writing “imaginary gardens with real toads in them.” I believe it’s from the work of a poet named Marianne Moore. I just love the idea of allowing yourself to write whatever world or circumstances you want as long as you make the characters adhere to an internal logic. Give me character-driven films over high concept plots any day. I write a lot of scripts that end up sitting on my computer and I will say that the one I’m most excited about is the whichever one that I’m working on. Whether it’s making a pitch deck or actually producing it, when it’s the thing I’m working on, it often becomes all-encompassing in my brain.

I would never say this life is easy. I’ve always told people if they can be genuinely happy doing something else, they should pursue that instead. I just know I would never be happy in some other career. I clearly have a compulsion for telling stories, so I have no intentions of stopping.

I’ve been lucky enough to also get jobs that were film-adjacent enough, even if they weren’t writing or directing. I owe a lot to Titi Lee for getting me a lot of production design work for Cracked and CollegeHumor when I first moved to LA. A literal lifesaving. It’s a shame internet comedy died out the way it did.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
I might be the worst LA tour guide ever, honestly. I am allergic to planning itineraries but two places I would make anyone visiting go are M Street Coffee in Sherman Oaks and Local Ice in the The Original Farmers Market because their coffee and ice cream are the best I’ve had in LA respectively.

For a beach, I would also take them to Point Dume in Malibu because it’s breathtaking and worth the drive.

Lastly, I would prevent them from trying any and all pizza and/or bagels “they heard were good.” There’s no such thing and I won’t let my friends be lied to. Haha.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
There are literally too many people to individually mention, so I want to start by thanking every single person that has ever helped me on a project. I shot three no-budget features and a 104-episode webseries when I was younger, so that would have been an impossibility without the generosity of so many people lending their homes, time, and energy. The amount of parents of childhood friends I owe gratitude to is immeasurable. I simply would not have any opportunity for any of this without all of the people that believed in me throughout my life. Same obviously goes for my family. They’ve been putting up with me for 35-plus years.

I think that filmmaking is such an oddly collaborative process and it’s never been lost on me that it is genuinely mind boggling that I’ve convinced so many people to help me tell silly stories. When I was 21, I remember watching footage of my friend Dan Hilt telling a story about a family that didn’t exist. I know it seems obvious… but for a moment he had breathed so much truth into the story that I forgot I had made it up. He hadn’t even met the actors playing his family yet! That was one of the first times it really hit me how lucky I am to work with really talented artists. And it’s not even just the artists. The amount of people that have been generous enough with their time, thoughts, sweat, all of it, over my career has been outstanding. The fact that these people trust me enough to help me bring something to life, is really just incredible.

I will thank a few people by name if I can though. I wouldn’t be the writer I am today without my English teacher Nancy Armstrong. She called me on my shit when I tried to coast on talent and I definitely needed that.

Andrew Saunders is my producing partner and co-conspirator when it comes to this pursuit, really. He’s an immensely talented actor who really gives a shit about the art of it all. He deserves his flowers. Not only for his dogged approach to the work, but for putting up with me using him as a soundboard for screenplays at 2:30 in the morning.

He was also one of the leads of my webseries, as were Jon Bershad, Em Löwinger, and Tim Liu. All incredible people and actors who gave me everything they had making shorts that sometimes got a couple of hundred views online. I owe them a lot.

Lastly, I’d thank my best friend, Mykie. She and I have co-written a lot of things and she really understands storytelling and creating scary imagery in a way that I sometimes struggle with. We occasionally butt heads on certain story beats but it’s very much an iron-sharpening-iron endeavor. She undoubtedly makes me a better writer and the scripts we co-write are stronger because she’s involved.

I’m sure I’m forgetting like ten other people, so I’m sorry, ten other people. You know who you are even if I don’t.

Website: https://www.macmakesmovies.com

Instagram: _macarony

Other: https://www.mactakessnaps.com

Image Credits
Photo in Malibu is by Lindsey Michelle Williams. (Smiling on rocks with green Friday The 12th shirt on)