‘M*A*S*H’ star to take the lead in new SLO County film. What to know about ‘Final Decision’
Celebrated actor Mike Farrell is coming to the North Coast to star in a new, feature-length movie set to film in Cambria next week.
The Emmy-nominated actor who appeared for decades in movies and on TV shows like “M*A*S*H” will take the lead role in “Final Decision,” a family drama that is being produced entirely in the small coastal enclave.
The film will reunite a quintet of hometown Cambria creatives who worked together on “Hidden Creek,” a locally based, award-winning movie released in 2023.
Psychologist Steve Brody was the screenwriter for both scripts.
He told The Tribune he drew insights for the semi-autobiographical “Final Decision” script from the emotionally draining time when his dying father lived with his family in Cambria for the last months of his life.
The new film’s title may change, Brody said, a decision that’s still pending.
Directing “Final Decision” are Kyle and Carlos Plummer, brothers who founded and own the Cambria-based movie firm SuperImage Ltd.
They launched their careers while still in middle and grammar schools, even earning the “Best Child Produced Film” award at the 2010 Chicago International Children’s Film Festival for their first original short film, “The Magic Hat.”
They’ve since gone on to produce other movies and shorts and are actively involved in the San Luis Obispo and Cambria film festivals.
Julian Mercado and Darien Jewel of Slabtown Studios will head up the production team that’s also staffed with local talent.
The Coast Union High School grads say they’re excited to work on the film, especially with Farrell leading the 12-member cast and Slabtown’s newly restructured, two-camera shooting techniques.
“We want to continue doing productions in San Luis Obispo and Los Angeles counties,” Mercado said Thursday. “We want to help grow the creative communities in both places.”
The four young film pros have known each other since their Cambria childhoods, when each of them became fascinated by movies and subsequently began working as juvenile filmmakers.
The “Final Decision” shoot is set to start in a creek-side Cambria home this week (delayed a day or so because of rain in the forecast) and run through the end of the month, Jewel told The Tribune. The weather might dictate an extension, however.
Unlike the Cambria quintet team’s production of “Hidden Creek” — much of which was shot in public locations — nearly all the sets for the new movie will be in private homes, as befits the medical trauma that threatens to tear a family apart.
‘M*A*S*H’ star adds decades of cred to Cambria film cast
Brody has known Farrell for decades and recruited the veteran actor for the lead in “Final Decision.”
Farrell will portray Herb, an aging, terminally ill patriarch with late-stage pancreatic cancer who is choosing how and when he wants to die, if he can bring himself to do that.
Meanwhile, Herb also must help his family members come to terms with whatever his choice is as they also resolve various other family conflicts with him and each other.
“The film is a very timely story, with a lot of potential to reach a new audience,” Carlos Plummer said. “To see Farrell in a role like this should be very powerful.”
The film touches on California’s so-called “End of Life Option” or right-to-die law — an important, difficult, controversial subject, Farrell told The Tribune on Friday.
“It’s also difficult to do a film about it without being soapy,” he said. “We all know there are tough decisions that have to be made, and inter-generational relationships create what can be very painful, hurtful. But they can also create opportunities.”
Farrell knows well the pain involved in a right-to-die decision. Roughly 20 years ago, he was called in by a friend for “an act of love” that he would never forget.
“A dear friend wanted me to be there,” he said. “To say it was a profound experience was to underestimate it by 1,000 miles.”
While the topic of “Final Decision” is a serious one, Brody said, it has an uplifting aspect that reminds him of when his own father died and he was looking into the casket with his sons behind him.
“It was a sense of the conveyor belt of our lives: One drops off and new ones come in behind,” he said. “It’s the continuation of life.”
Who else will star in movie?
While “Hidden Creek” included many local actors, extras and crew members, the new roster is more pared down, Mercado and Jewel told The Tribune.
That’s partly because “Final Decision” is more heavily family based, as the patient, two sons, a daughter-in-law and a gifted, 8-year-old grandson navigate the complex emotions based on the impending death of their beloved father and grandfather.
“It’s about a family trying to band together in the face of tragedy, the inevitability of the loss of a patriarch,” Jewel said.
Actor/contortionist Doug Jones, (“Shape of Water,” “Pan’s Labyrinth”) committed to do a “day” role in the film as Herb’s doctor, Kyle Plummer said.
“Doug’s delighted to have a role for which he won’t be heavily coated in makeup,” Carlos Plummer added with a grin.
Actress Suann Spoke (“Wild Prairie Rose,” “Station 19”), also has signed on, Farrell and Brody said.
Her character helps guide Herb through some of the more difficult aspects of his decision.
Actress Ivette Li-Sanchez of Santa Barbara (“Hunger Games: Catching Fire”) will act as Herb’s daughter-in-law, “the glue who holds the family together through the trauma,” Brody said. “Her character is based on my wife, Cathy Brody.”
Other cast members are from San Luis Obispo and other Central Coast communities.
For instance, three primary actors in the small cast are Josh Garrett of Santa Barbara, playing Herb’s older son; Abe Lincoln of San Luis Obispo in the role of the younger sibling; and Mateo Ray Garcia of Orcutt as Herb’s grandson.
“Not only are we filming the entire project in Cambria, our crew is entirely local, people we’ve worked with, an extremely talented group of people from the Central Coast,” Kyle Plummer told The Tribune on Saturday. “It’s our first time punching at this weight class, and it will serve as a proving ground for what we can accomplish right here.”
This story was originally published March 12, 2025 at 5:00 AM.
