Oscar Nuñez talks comedy and making it in the world of show business (as well as exotic dancing)

There’s no doubt about it. Oscar Nuñez is incredibly funny. While he may be best known for his role on the hit television show “The Office” for the past six seasons, Nuñez’s career in comedy has its roots in improv. Nuñez was a member of the Los Angeles based improv group The Groundlings, and before that was a founding member and star of The Shock of the Funny in New York where he performed in over three hundred shows.

I recently talked with Oscar about his career and his scene-stealing role as the exotic dancer Ramone in the hit comedy THE PROPOSAL, and his rigorous training regime he implemented before stripping for Sandra Bullock.

Allan Given: First of all, who were some of your earliest influences in comedy?

Oscar Nuñez: Well, let’s see. You know I remember really enjoying “The Carol Burnett Show.” I watched and I loved “The Red Skelton Hour.” I was really little, but I do remember seeing Red Skelton on TV and really liking that and also Jackie Gleason. But I really remember laughing hard at Harvey Korman and Tim Conway on “The Carol Burnett Show.”

AG: Absolutely, me too.

ON: And Carol of course. Then later I saw “The Odd Couple” which was one of the best sitcoms, with Tony Randall and Jack Klugman. Yeah, I would say those things.

AG: Talk to me some about your experiences in the Warner Bros. Writing Program. What made you apply to that and what do you think was the greatest lesson you learned there was?

ON: Well I was in The Groundlings and my friend Mike Player, he runs a sketch comedy show now called The Gay Mafia, wasn’t doing anything, he was kind of running the sketch comedy around town and we always worked well together and there was a contest for the Warner Bros. Writing Program and he said, “You know why don’t we write a spec for that?” And I said, “Yeah, sure why not?” We wrote our first spec together. We had known each other for years; we had performed in New York City in a sketch improv show called The Shock of the Funny down in the Village. We wrote a spec, I believe it was a “Frasier” episode that was the hot spec to write at the time.

AG: Right.

ON: That was ’98. And we wrote a spec for “Frasier,” we wrote one spec, our first spec together. We sent it in. I think they looked at 24,000 scripts and from that they picked fifty. They let us know we were in the fifty and then we had an interview or something and then they picked twenty-four for the actual program and we got in. We met a bunch of writers, some of them were single writers by themselves and some of them were teens and they’re all talking and they were like “Yeah, this is you know, our fifteenth spec that we’ve written and I think we really got it good this time.” Everybody’s been together for years writing, and we were like “Uh, this is the first one we wrote.” And they couldn’t believe it, they hated us. They were like, “Wait a minute, you guys just wrote this spec for the first time ever?” And we were like, “Yeah.” But we had known each other for years, so that was pretty cool though. We wrote a couple of more after that, I thought they were good and everyone was raving, but we never got placed anywhere.

AG: Now what do you believe is the hardest part of writing comedy?

ON: I guess the second part of the question, “What did you learn from it,” is you know, if it gets fast, what you have to do, but what you don’t want to do, is to have patience and be able to take a lot of notes and go back and re-tool something over and over and over again. And also don’t bring up a criticism unless you have a fix for the problem.

AG: Right.

ON: So those I guess are basically the two things. You know, once you’ve got in. That’s about it. I don’t think you can force anyone to try to become a comedy writer or a writer. I think it’s something that you have to kind of want to do yourself.

AG: Exactly. Something that is innate in the person.

ON: Yeah, so the heart is there, the passion is there. And if that’s not there, it’s not going to happen. You know Jack Nicholson was on “The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson” along time ago and Johnny asked him, “What advice do you have for people who want to become actors?” and Jack said, “If they need advice, they ain’t going to make it.” You know, you only realize that you get what he’s saying after you’ve made it. The advice is “don’t quit.” And either two things are going to happen, you’re going to make it or you’re not. If you have a backup job great. If not, it’s the poor house. If those still exist. Because there are no rules. Just tenacity. Of course it’s not kidding yourself. If you suck, don’t even be in it. But if you think, “I’ve got something to say” or “I can do something…I want to try and do something” and you think you’re good, then it can happen in one day or it may take years and years.

AG: Completely. Now in THE PROPOSAL, your character Ramone is so drastically different from the character you play on “The Office.” What have you learned the most about yourself as an individual from playing the two different characters?

ON: You know, I don’t think anything that I didn’t know before. It’s just playing. I’d be doing this for free walking down the street if I wasn’t being paid for it. You know, it’s what I do. It’s just fun being given the opportunity to do these things. That’s the whole difference right there, it’s incredible. I’m very lucky.

AG: And how did you approach playing Ramone in THE PROPOSAL?

ON: Well, I knew I would have to dance and like be in a stupid bathing suit. So sit-ups, push ups, pull-ups, running three miles every day, all these things I did not do. I just kind of ate pizza and hung out and hoped that I wouldn’t pull anything or strain anything.

AG: Now, what do you think your fans would be the most surprised to learn about you?

ON: You know, it’s pretty much a class clown life that I’ve had. You know, you’re in school, you’re an idiot and you keep doing that and you keep plugging away and pretty much the route of anyone else you see out there doing it. Some people go to Emerson College or you do the stand up thing, or I myself, I was in The Shock of the Funny in New York City and later when I came here to Los Angeles, I joined The Groundlings. And it’s either The Groundlings or Acting Theater or UCB or iO, those are the theatres that are set up here. And you go there and you like meet people and make friends and hopefully, hopefully you get jobs out of it.

AG: Right. Now performing with The Shock of the Funny and performing with The Groundlings, with you as an actor, what is your approach to performing improv?

ON: You kind of figure it out as you go. It doesn’t matter what your approach is, the first time you step on stage, no matter how much you train and practice and rehearse, you’re going to be terrified. And eventually you won’t do that. At the beginning, no matter how funny you think you are, you will bomb, and you have to get through those hard times. But you come out better if you stick with it. But really just prepare yourself. It all comes back. You kind of freak out a little bit because you’re like, “Oh my god, I know I’m funny. I’ve practiced and trained,” and yet the first couple of times out you’re just terrified. And you’re like, “Wow, was I kidding myself?” But it all comes, it all evens out. The butterflies go away.

AG: To wrap things up here, what three words do you think best describe you as an individual?

ON: Three words? Let’s see, I would say liberal first. Liberal, medium-sized and Cuban.

Oscar can be seen every Thursday night on “The Office” on NBC and his new movie, THE PROPOSAL, starring Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds, has just been released on Blu-ray and can be purchased directly from Amazon by CLICKING HERE.