This is Later with Lee Matthews the Lee Matthews Podcast More what You Hear Weekday
Afternoon's on the Drive. Oscar Noniez is known best for playing Oscar on NBC's
The Office, but he's also won Emmys and two SAG Awards and Alma Awards
as well. Exciting new feature film coming out that he has a part in.
It's called The Long Game and it's out this weekend everywhere in theaters.
Oscar. This is a different kind of golf movie, is it? It?
Though? It's an amazing story. I was not aware of it till
I read the script and I'm like, what, that's a great story and
takes it then as quid it got up on the silver screen as they say,
yeah, I was happy to be a part of it. The story
is about a man named j. B. Penya who moves to Del Rio,
Texas. Take the story from there that that is true and and guess
what. There's a high school in that town, of public high school.
And there's kids, uh at that high school, boys who love the game
of golf. As a matter of fact, they caddy at the private club
where they're not allowed to. They don't play at the club. But they
caddy there and they love them, and they're always swinging clubs around, and
they're out in the desert hitting balls around, and they make a little RinkyDink
course out there, and and he decides to coach them, and guess what
they end up Their team ends up going to the state championship up against the
private school with the with the organized team and all that stuff. And then,
uh, you know, they they play and that's the that's what happened
in real life. They went from nothing to organizing their high school golf team
and uh and making history. That's what I was about to ask. Because
this is such a fantastic tale. I don't want to say no body could
come up with it. Julio o'cintana is one of the writers and the director,
so I'm not saying he couldn't have come up with it. But it's
one of those fantastic tales that's even better because it is true. Yeah,
it's amazing. It's a great sport, it's a great human story. Uh,
you know, great for Dennis for you know, putting it up on
the screen. He's from Texas, he loves Texas, he loves golf.
Perfect All Star cast. It's The Long Game, and it also not only
stars Oscar Nunez of the Office, but Jay Hernandez, Dennis Quaid, cheech
Marin, Julian Works, Jenna lie Ortiz, Brett Cullen, Richard Robischow.
Hey that's not a Hispanic name, but okay, and Paulinaez. Your role
is principal Guerra does is he an antagonist or a protagonist? He's a protagonist.
He's he's a good guys. He's hagging it out there doing his best,
and he facilitates, he helps him. But you know, he's in
the administrator. He's a principal at the school out of high school and does
a little bit of comic relief there. But he definitely tries to help this
thing happen, but you know, in an administrative way, he has to
be careful. The Long Game is the film. Oscar Nunez is with us
to talk about it. Chiech Marin kind of plays the grounds keeper guru.
That's right, that's right. I got to meet him. We shot.
I saw him in Texas and actually got to meet him, and that was
a treat. I was with my daughter and I said, Hey, this
this is chief manor he's a comic legend, and he was a little bit
touched by that. It was kind of sweet. Yeah, I mean you,
you and I both grew up watching him do all kinds of things.
Sure, yeah, yeah. The long game this refers to in golf,
you have two games. You've got the short game when you're hovering about the
putting green. The long game is different, and it's also kind of a
double enten for these this group of teenagers. That's right, that's right,
yes, and thank you for the French. It is a double ud and
it's a great Like I said, I you know, I was not aware
of this story at all, and then once I read the script, I'm
like, of course, of course this is something like this happened. It
must have happened at some point. Everyone always thinks, you know, football,
baseball, hockey, But golf had its moments to its wonderful you know,
moments that were pivotal. Well, and you don't normally see you know,
you don't know, when you think of Del Rio, Texas, you
don't think of golf and country club. No. No, but even even
small towns, I guess, I guess that's what separates a small time from
a really, like really really small towns don't have country clubs. But once
you have a country club, I guess that town has everything going forward.
It's got all the stratuses of economic you know, it's got everything from high
end of folk to working class folk and below. This also takes place in
nineteen fifty six, which is a time of American history where things weren't very
united. Shall we say no, Things were starting to change, but you
know, they weren't united, but you had the wiggle room to do something
about it. Those kids didn't just stand around. They're like, we like
golf. Let's find a way to get golf clubs and hit the ball around.
And they turned on their own. They were pretty good. Never mind
when the coach shows up and says, hey, let's do this for real.
That was pretty cool. Oscar Nunez is with us. You know him
from the office and many other things. He plays Principal Guerra in The Long
Game in theaters this weekend. Are you a golfer or enthusiast at all enthusiasts
golfer? Now, we started taking lessons a little bit over a decade ago.
My wife got pregnant and we stopped taking lessons, but I do love
watching it. I love golf courses. What a better place to be,
There's no better place to be. Maybe I'll take it up again. Lovely
wife and I tried. We lived adjacent to a golf course for about eight
years, and we thought, well, we've got this golf course, it's
right here, we may as well try. And I had played a little
in high school. I knew the game and the rules, and we took
some professional lessons as well. And don't you know about that time we got
transferred and moved away from the golf course. If it's not accessible, you're
not going to play, that's right. Oh boy, they're beauty. There's
some beauties out here. I live in LA and there's one right here in
the valley, a small one. It's a hole, and that's where I
was learning. But there's some really nice ones nearby. Yeah, I might
start hitting the ball, oh am, I kidding. I'll do other be
time consuming. It is. Every time I think about it, Oscar,
I say to myself, I have enough hobbies already, and I don't want
to go out there to embarrass myself. If I was going out there and
hitting the ball, at least straight, you know, but you want to
hit it hard and straight, It's very difficult. Oscar Nunez. You know,
I'm from NBC's The Office. He's also in the all new production of
the Long Game. It's in theaters now. Principal Gulleta is the character that
he plays, but it's also an all star cast of Jay hen Nandez dnis
Quaid, Cheech Marin and many others. An excellent story for weekend viewing,
and we thank you for joining us, Oscar right on. Thank you,
thanks for listening to Later with Lee Matthews, the Lee Matthews Podcast, and
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