Oscar Nunez is best known for playing the Accountant, “Oscar”, on the American version of the Office. In The Proposal, alongside Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds, Oscar ditches his uptight persona to play “Ramone” – a jack of all trades in the Alaskan town of Sitka. We caught up with Oscar to discuss the film, which is out on DVD and Blu-Ray right now.
You’re best known as ‘Oscar’ from The Office which I would imagine that you don’t get much time off from, why did you decide to film movies on your days off?
Steve Carell does a lot of movies, and I remember asking him about I didn’t know if Greg Daniels [the Office executive producer] will give me time off to do other projects and he said ‘That’s not your problem, let them figure it out. Do everything you can, strike while the iron is hot because this isn’t going to last forever.’ And I took that to heart, and I try to work as much as possible.
When you got the role of ‘Ramone’ in The Proposal, did you hit the gym or prepare in anyway for the dance scene?
Situps, Push Ups, Waking up early.. all the things I did not do when I got the part. [laughs] It’s not funny if you’re in shape, so I did exactly what I did before, if anything I ate more!
Was it fun to play such an outrageous character after playing such an uptight character on TV for so long?
Yeah, it was. That type of character is kind of my forte, what I normally don’t do is play that sort of character on The Office, the straight man so to speak – which is fun too, but what I ususally do is play characters like ‘Ramone’.
I read that you travelled to work every day with Betty White, which must’ve been quite an experience?
Fantastic! I also made friends with Denis O’Hare who is in thousands of movies, he played the Immigration Lawyer, and it was nice to hang out with them and have dinner together a couple of times. My parts were shot in Boston, so there was a big break inbetween where I got to sightsee – Boston’s a great town for that.
Some of your ‘Office’ co-workers, your friends and family saw the fi lm – what did they think when they saw it?
They were so happy because you don’t [usually] get to see me do that stuff. I remember Brian [‘Kevin’, The Office] shaking his head and Angela [‘Angela’, The Office] is an old friend so she was like ‘That’s Oscar!’ But Brian hadn’t seen me do anything like that before, which was kind of cool.
Ramone has so many different jobs in the film, if you weren’t an actor – what would you be doing?
I would like to work with children or animals. Oceanographer, a Teacher or a Ranger – anything like that!
Can you listen to ‘Relax’ by Frankie Goes to Hollywood the same way now?
Yeah, it’s always been iconic for me. I had some suggestions – I told them it could either be Dead or Alive, ‘You Spin Me Right Round’ or they had another song, ‘Lover Come Back to Me’. One of those three songs are crazy party songs! But Relax won out in the end.
The Proposal is available on DVD and Blu-Ray right now!
The Office airs on Network 10 Tuesdays & Thursdays at 8pm.
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