We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Jeff Friedman a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Jeff, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.

The most meaningful project I’ve worked on is the feature film I co-wrote recently with my friend and improv teammate, Jess Hagge. We wish to dedicate it to the mental health clinicians who have changed our lives directly and to all mental health practitioners.

The story’s largely autobiographical. It’s about an exposure therapy partial hospitalization program I did last year for OCD (and anxiety and depression). My treatment teams there and elsewhere changed my life completely.

In our tale, an obsessive-compulsive comedian confronts their greatest fears in an effort to overcome them. The story also deals with suicidality, Spravato (esketamine) therapy, and the 12-step program Adult Children of Alcoholics and Dysfunctional Families. I hope it can ultimately help people the way my therapists and treatments have helped me.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

Movies like The Truman Show changed my life. I was an introverted, anxious kid. Stories like Truman’s awakening gave me purpose. I obsessed over characters like the bunch from Friends, and had them in my mind long after I finished watching my sister’s box set. I got chills during the curtain calls of every live performance I saw—I assumed everyone did. Then, I saw Good Will Hunting. Robin Williams took me to a new world. I saw how emotional pain could bond people together, creating beauty out of what can be the loneliest experiences. At Pomona College, I took my first acting class with LA-based actor and director Professor Carolyn Ratteray, and she cast me the next year in my first mainstage show. She introduced us to the worlds of improv comedy and clown. I fell in love with improv and started supplementing school with UCB classes and shows, magnetic experiences featuring improvisers like Zach Woods and Mary Holland. I majored in film studies, minored in theatre, and received an emphasis in fiction writing. I got a part-time job with a mental health nonprofit in LA, and when I graduated, I threw myself into the Hollywood actor routine.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

The main mission driving my creative journey is the opportunity to lend a voice to the voiceless. Within a few months of moving to Hollywood, in September of 2019, I saw a pedestrian get hit on the highway. It’s been the single most influential event of my life. The woman I saw standing behind her vehicle on the 10 couldn’t have been much older than I am. It was dark, but I was close enough to see the whites of her eyes. I saw her innocent disbelief when she processed the unswerving car one lane over from mine. After they hit her, as I moved to the right lane and called the police, I couldn’t help but scream. My hands shook the entire ride home. I figured the event would make local, maybe national headlines by the time I got back, if it hadn’t already. I got home to my building, and it was a peaceful Sunday night. Through neighbor’s doors, I could hear bits of lighthearted conversation in English and Russian, late-night talk show laughs, and the sounds of silly cartoons. I’ll never forget this tragedy and the days that followed.

Have any books or other resources had a big impact on you?

The podcast Mind Pump has influenced the way I see health and fitness more than any other resource. In addition to health and fitness, they often discuss entrepreneurship and other helpful topics. I highly recommend listening (in any order, really).

Contact Info:

• Website: https://imdb.me/jefffriedman
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jefffriedman__/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jefffriedman622/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jefffriedman18/
• Other: https://resumes.actorsaccess.com/jefffriedman

Image Credits

DarylJim Diaz, Joanna DeGeneres, Clay Larsen, Sean and Taylor King