One of the 50 films that made the cut was Numb, starring Matthew Perry and Mary Steenburgen. A little cosmic poetry here: Steenburgen lives in Ojai and Perry is a frequent visitor, as his father and stepmother are long-time residents.

On a recent Sunday night, Perry made a trip to see his father play with his music group, the Ojai Valley Boys. Looking every adorable inch like Chandler, his Friends character, Perry showed up in jeans, black sneakers, and a cotton pullover. We spoke outside the theater before he ducked in to see his dad sing and play guitar with the cowboy trio.

Since the sitcom ended two years ago, the 38-year-old actor has been busy. He’s done a couple of TV movies and had a regular part in The West Wing for a season, and he got high praise for the short-lived TV series Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip before NBC pulled the plug earlier this year.

Perry’s interesting to watch. He walks with ease, and seems quite comfortable in his own skin. Asked about how it was working on Numb, Perry shifts gears and the passion in his voice becomes audible. “Working with Mary was great,” he says. “But the script and the story were also great. And it was a treat working with Harris Goldberg, and playing a writer who suffers from anxiety and delusion. It was a little weird playing the life of the guy who was directing me.”

Perry describes his part as an interior journey of someone who grapples with the effects of depression. But I thought this movie was supposed to be a comedy, I tell him. Perry quickly answers, “It’s a dark comedy.”

According to the guy who wrote it based on his own experience, director and writer Harris Goldberg explains the dark comedy bit. But first the title: Numb refers to a psychological condition—actually, a mental disorder—called depersonalization. Described as a dissociative disorder, the suffering person gives the impression that nothing is wrong, although he feels as if he’s losing his mind and that everything around him is dreamlike.

Goldberg describes the immense work he undertook to find some help and a cure. “So very little research has been done on it. I figured that a therapist would have all the answers,” he explains. “But that wasn’t true. I think that what I learned was a little bit from each one I saw.”

He speaks freely about what it was like—and how it is now. “It hasn’t totally left. It’s always there on a smaller degree,” says the 35-year-old Canadian. “But this encompasses people’s lives. I started getting tired of being worried about it all the time. And as I read more and more about it, I could kind of track it and understand it more. Now I’ve learned how to live with it.”

This, of course, was a complete U-turn for someone who’d been in the studio system and had had a lot of early success as a comedy writer. “I basically was given carte blanche to write whatever I wanted, and it came easy to me,” he says.

Well, it might have come easy, but it also became a little obsessive. “I just kept doing it, and after a number of years, I never took a break, never took a vacation. I got a lot of kudos for being a good studio writer, and I just kept working. When I made the movie Without a Paddle, I just couldn’t do another stupid movie,” Goldberg says.

So he took a different tack and sat down to write something unique. When he finished, he had the script for Numb. And what a process. It usually takes six months to a year to write a script. “This took six weeks,” he says, sounding surprised even as he recalls it. “I had this thing that was so personal. I asked a producer friend to read it, and when he finished he said he loved it and that it struck a chord with him.”

It seems that everything about the film—the writing, the acting, the post-production—was organic in its speed and collaborative effort. “Shooting took about 23 days, and it was extraordinarily fast and difficult,” he says, “but I managed. For the post production, editing took 12 weeks and sound took about another eight weeks. Honestly, it was a terrific education, and I was forced to do things I didn’t know…One thing I learned was how important it is for a director to be collaborative.”

And how did Matthew Perry come into the picture? “Honestly, I wanted Matthew to play this part, even though there was initial resistance. I wanted him to do something completely different, and I knew he could do it. He was wonderful. He went deeper and deeper, and was a joy to work with. We spent a lot of time together and became very good friends,” says Goldberg.

High praise, indeed. As for Mary Steenburgen, who won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in the 1980 film, Melvin and Howard, she plays the role of a therapist. Goldberg was smitten from the start. “I was intimidated when she first came by. Mary was so professional and very elegant,” he says. “But I took it upon myself to ask if I could hang out with her, to find out what she thought about the script, and what she thought about me.”

Clearly the shooting and direction went well, because Goldberg reports that at the end, Steenburgen told him: “I’ve worked with great directors, and I just want to let you know that this is the most fun I’ve ever had and that you are an actor’s director.” He says he practically fell into a swoon. “It made me feel so great, even to this day,” he says. “She’s really the epitome of a professional. She’s a trained craftsman, not a personality. And this has given me the confidence to move forward. I just don’t get intimated anymore because of Mary.”

Even though the matter of distribution hasn’t been established, the film has been well received at regional film fests from Newport to Austin, Texas. “And we won the audience award at the Chicago Film Festival three weeks ago,” Goldberg says.

Numb is going to be the closing night feature for the Ojai Film Festival, but there are a lot of other things going on before then, with roughly 10 to 12 documentaries, 10 feature-length films and shorts, and, of course, the animated films.

The opening night screenings are free, and the films will be shown at the Art Center Theater, Matilija Junior High School, and Libbey Park Bowl. Sunday, the last day, will be a tribute to local film makers and actors, and the feature film is Agenda, with John Perry.

There was a touching moment when Perry finished talking about the film and went from actor to father, speaking of how much he enjoyed working with his son. “We worked together in Fools Rush In, and working with Matthew was terrific,” he said tenderly. “I’m very proud of him—not only professionally, but also because he’s a great guy.”

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