Lorene Scafaria

Lorene Scafaria (born 1978) is an American filmmaker, playwright, musician, and former actress. She wrote and directed the films ''Seeking a Friend for the End of the World'' (2012), ''The Meddler'' (2015), and '' Hustlers'' (2019), in addition to writing the film ''Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist'' (2008).

Early life

Scafaria was born in 1978 in Holmdel, New Jersey, the daughter of Gail and Joseph R. Scafaria (1939–2009). Her mother is half Canadian, while her father was an Italian immigrant from Gioia Tauro. She has a brother named Vincent. She first became interested in writing when she began writing a report on a fake book once a month to win Pizza Hut gift certificates from her school. By the age of 17, she had written and staged her first play in Red Bank, New Jersey. After graduating from Holmdel High School in 1995, she attended Lafayette College in Easton, Pennsylvania; after being unable to afford Lafayette's tuition, she transferred to Montclair State University in Montclair, New Jersey. She graduated from Montclair with a BA in English with a minor in theater.

Career

After moving to New York City, Scafaria wrote and staged a play at the Producer's Club Theatre called ''That Guy and Others Like Him'', in which she also played a role. She also had a small role in the acclaimed short film ''Bullet in the Brain'', which won awards at nine festivals and was produced by CJ Follini. Her writing agent had still yet to find her a job, so she took on more acting roles, appearing in many theater productions in addition to films such as ''Big Helium Dog'' and ''A Million Miles''. She sent out queries to twenty different agents to seek representation, one of whom replied and asked her to move from New York to Los Angeles. Although she did not anticipate real success with the agent, she moved to Los Angeles and became roommates with screenwriter Bryan Sipe, whom she had previously met while making a film in her native New Jersey. Neither of their work was considered "commercial" enough by studios, so they paired up to write a children's adventure film called ''Legend Has It''. Revolution Studios bought the screenplay but asked for a re-write which Scafaria described as "far less interesting", and the project was ultimately shelved.

In early 2005, Scafaria was hired by Focus Features to adapt Rachel Cohn and David Levithan's book ''Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist'' into a film of the same name. The screenplay was her ninth, but her first adaptation. Scafaria said to ''Moviemaker'' about the source material, "I grew up in suburban New Jersey, so I immediately identified with the characters, especially Norah. Everything from feeling uncomfortable in my own skin to having a father who's larger than life (even if only in your mind), her plight really spoke to me and seemed like it would speak to a lot of young girls. It wasn't hard to get inside the characters' heads—the authors' voices are so strong. Scafaria goes onto to say the film ''Before Sunrise'' was a big inspiration for the structure of the film. Scafaria wanted to bring a nostalgic take on the teen comedy claiming "it was just a real challenge to kind of bring it back to those movies that I grew up on in the '80s, John Hughes movies and Cameron Crowe."

Scafaria is good friends with fellow ''Nick & Norah'' writers Diablo Cody and Liz Meriwether, with whom she collaborates in a writing group they call the "Fempire". In 2012, Scafaria and the "Fempire" received the Athena Film Festival Award for Creativity and Sisterhood. She wrote the Iraq War docudrama ''Sweet Relief'' for Paramount Pictures and ''The Mighty Flynn'', a spec script which she set up at Warner Brothers. She has also written ''Man and Wife'', which Gabriele Muccino is attached to direct.

During the 2007–2008 Writers Guild of America strike, Scafaria recorded an album called ''Garden Party'', featuring original songs she sang and played on the piano. The 2009 film ''Whip It!'' features the song "28" in the closing credits. She released her second album, ''Laughter and Forgetting'', on April 1, 2010.

In 2009, Mandate Pictures picked up Scafaria's script ''Seeking a Friend for the End of the World'', a romantic comedy that focused on one man's quest for a meaningful connection amid the "end of days". The film marked the directorial debut for Scafaria, and was released in June 2012. In an interview with FF2 Media's Jan Huttner, Scafaria conveyed the depth and allure of the apocalypse concept: "Two people at the end of the world—all the chaos that's around them that they're sort of wheeling through—and obviously some people are just mowing their lawn and other people are doing heroin... but there's something to me that becomes even more romantic, and that's what I was excited to explore and see." This becomes a part of her style, adaptations, and personal feelings because she states "I love relationships. I love intimate stories about people; whether it's a guy and a girl or whatever it is, I like intimate stories of people and how they relate to each other".

In 2015, Scafaria directed the comedy-drama ''The Meddler'' based on her own script. The film tells the story of a mother and daughter trying to move on with life after the loss of their husband and father. Scafaria said to the ''New York Times'', "There's a reason that it's all from Marnie's perspective because I never wanted to get a break from her. More than anything I wanted it to inspire empathy from people who might find themselves in this situation, whether it's through loss or some other circumstance that creates strife. Once I started showing people the script, that there was something so relatable about being the adult child of someone and trying to stay best friends."

In 2019, Scafaria wrote and directed the crime drama film '' Hustlers'', based on a 2015 ''New York'' magazine article by Jessica Pressler. The film is about a woman who was born to Cambodian immigrant refugees and was deserted and forced to stay with her grandparents who tried her hardest to get by. The film was a critical and commercial success. Scafaria said to ''Vox'' on the real story, "There are a lot of movies that I think have touched upon these themes—'' The Wolf of Wall Street'' or movies like ''The Big Short''—which explain inancial downturnsfrom the bullpen. But I'm really interested in seeing the impact that the 2008 recession had on these women who worked in Wall Street's backyard." When mentioning the relationship between Destiny and Ramona the writer and director said, "It felt like there was something more in between the lines – the story of these two women who became friends and formed this business together, and then here they are being interviewed separately years later." In an Oprah Daily 2019 Interview by Brie Schwartz with Roselyn Keo, the real-life stripper who went through the events of the film told her side of the story and how accurate it was. With a ''The Wolf of Wall Street'' like theme dealing with excess and greed, it made sense for the manipulation the women do to get into sleazy men's pockets reached the heights they did with the business mentality she said was "The girls were looking for money, and the guys were looking for love. Supply and demand". Scafaria wrote a glamorous and cohesive story that remained true to the attitude of the characters proving great skills in emotional depth and authenticity as a writer and director.

In 2021, Scafaria directed the ''Succession'' episode " Too Much Birthday", for which she received a Directors Guild of America Award nomination for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Dramatic Series as well as a Primetime Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series.

Personal life

Scafaria is in a relationship with musical comedian Bo Burnham, with whom she lives in Los Angeles. They began dating in 2013. Burnham's special ''Inside'' was dedicated to her and includes the text "for lor, for everything" in the end credits.

Filmography

Films

Television

Awards and nominations

References

External links

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Scafaria, Lorene
American women film directors
American film actresses
Screenwriters from New Jersey
Holmdel High School alumni
Lafayette College alumni
Living people
Montclair State University alumni
People from Holmdel Township, New Jersey
American women screenwriters
American women dramatists and playwrights
American writers of Italian descent
People of Calabrian descent
Film directors from New Jersey
20th-century American actresses
21st-century American actresses
21st-century American screenwriters
21st-century American dramatists and playwrights
21st-century American women writers
American film directors of Italian descent
1978 births