OSCAR NUNEZ-THE LONG GAME.

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Episode Transcript

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This is Later with Lee Matthews theLee Matthews Podcast More what You Hear Weekday
Afternoon's on the Drive. Oscar Noniezis known best for playing Oscar on NBC's
The Office, but he's also wonEmmys and two SAG Awards and Alma Awards
as well. Exciting new feature filmcoming out that he has a part in.

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It's called The Long Game and it'sout this weekend everywhere in theaters.
Oscar. This is a different kindof 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 gotup on the silver screen as they say,

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yeah, I was happy to bea part of it. The story
is about a man named j.B. Penya who moves to Del Rio,
Texas. Take the story from therethat that is true and and guess
what. There's a high school inthat town, of public high school.
And there's kids, uh at thathigh school, boys who love the game

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of golf. As a matter offact, they caddy at the private club
where they're not allowed to. Theydon'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 ballsaround, and they make a little RinkyDink
course out there, and and hedecides to coach them, and guess what

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they end up Their team ends upgoing to the state championship up against the
private school with the with the organizedteam and all that stuff. And then,
uh, you know, they theyplay and that's the that's what happened
in real life. They went fromnothing to organizing their high school golf team

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and uh and making history. That'swhat 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'cintanais one of the writers and the director,
so I'm not saying he couldn't havecome up with it. But it's
one of those fantastic tales that's evenbetter because it is true. Yeah,
it's amazing. It's a great sport, it's a great human story. Uh,

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you know, great for Dennis foryou know, putting it up on
the screen. He's from Texas,he loves Texas, he loves golf.
Perfect All Star cast. It's TheLong Game, and it also not only
stars Oscar Nunez of the Office,but Jay Hernandez, Dennis Quaid, cheech
Marin, Julian Works, Jenna lieOrtiz, Brett Cullen, Richard Robischow.

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Hey that's not a Hispanic name,but okay, and Paulinaez. Your role
is principal Guerra does is he anantagonist or a protagonist? He's a protagonist.
He's he's a good guys. He'shagging it out there doing his best,

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and he facilitates, he helps him. But you know, he's in
the administrator. He's a principal atthe 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 isthe film. Oscar Nunez is with us

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to talk about it. Chiech Marinkind of plays the grounds keeper guru.
That's right, that's right. Igot to meet him. We shot.
I saw him in Texas and actuallygot to meet him, and that was
a treat. I was with mydaughter and I said, Hey, this
this is chief manor he's a comiclegend, and he was a little bit

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touched by that. It was kindof sweet. Yeah, I mean you,
you and I both grew up watchinghim do all kinds of things.
Sure, yeah, yeah. Thelong game this refers to in golf,
you have two games. You've gotthe short game when you're hovering about the
putting green. The long game isdifferent, and it's also kind of a
double enten for these this group ofteenagers. That's right, that's right,

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yes, and thank you for theFrench. 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, andthen once I read the script, I'm
like, of course, of coursethis is something like this happened. It
must have happened at some point.Everyone always thinks, you know, football,

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baseball, hockey, But golf hadits 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 thinkof Del Rio, Texas, you
don't think of golf and country club. No. No, but even even
small towns, I guess, Iguess that's what separates a small time from

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a really, like really really smalltowns don't have country clubs. But once
you have a country club, Iguess that town has everything going forward.
It's got all the stratuses of economicyou know, it's got everything from high
end of folk to working class folkand below. This also takes place in
nineteen fifty six, which is atime of American history where things weren't very

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united. Shall we say no,Things were starting to change, but you
know, they weren't united, butyou had the wiggle room to do something
about it. Those kids didn't juststand around. They're like, we like
golf. Let's find a way toget 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.

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That was pretty cool. Oscar Nunezis with us. You know him
from the office and many other things. He plays Principal Guerra in The Long
Game in theaters this weekend. Areyou a golfer or enthusiast at all enthusiasts
golfer? Now, we started takinglessons a little bit over a decade ago.

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My wife got pregnant and we stoppedtaking 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 livedadjacent 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 welltry. And I had played a little

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in high school. I knew thegame and the rules, and we took
some professional lessons as well. Anddon't you know about that time we got
transferred and moved away from the golfcourse. 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 livein LA and there's one right here in
the valley, a small one.It's a hole, and that's where I

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was learning. But there's some reallynice ones nearby. Yeah, I might
start hitting the ball, oh am, I kidding. I'll do other be
time consuming. It is. Everytime I think about it, Oscar,
I say to myself, I haveenough hobbies already, and I don't want
to go out there to embarrass myself. If I was going out there and

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hitting the ball, at least straight, you know, but you want to
hit it hard and straight, It'svery difficult. Oscar Nunez. You know,
I'm from NBC's The Office. He'salso in the all new production of
the Long Game. It's in theatersnow. Principal Gulleta is the character that
he plays, but it's also anall star cast of Jay hen Nandez dnis

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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 LeeMatthews, the Lee Matthews Podcast, and
remember to listen to The Drive Liveweekday afternoons from five to seven and Iheartsmedia presentation