Cheech Marin draws on discrimination his WWII veteran dad felt for his role in movie 'The Long Game'
Comedian, actor and activist Cheech Marin drew on his father's experiences as a World War II veteran for his role in the movie "The Long Game," about an underdog Mexican American high school golf team in Texas and the racism they and their coach faced.
Comedian, actor and activist Cheech Marin says he doesn’t let rules govern his life. But for his new role in “The Long Game,” an underdog sports movie about five Mexican American teens who win the Texas high school golf championship in 1957 despite the racism they faced at the time, Marin found inspiration in the rules that guided his father.
“When my dad came back from World War II, the whole world was the Navy because he knew exactly what to do in that world,” Marin said in an interview with NBC News, describing the rules that his father followed to get through life after the military.
“When he came out of the service, he was bewildered because he wasn’t accepted in a lot of employable positions,” Marin said about his Mexican American father. “And he became a policeman, which was all rules. So he was safe in that environment.”
The movie "The Long Game" tells the real-life story of J.B. Peña (played by actor Jay Hernandez), a World War II veteran and school district superintendent who’s rejected from membership at the whites-only San Felipe Country Club in Del Rio, Texas, because he's Mexican American. He goes on, however, to form a high school golf team, the Mustangs, for the Mexican American teens who were caddies at the whites-only club and had fallen in love with the sport. The golf team went on to win the high school championship.
Marin plays Pollo, a World War I veteran who's a groundskeeper at the country club — where he, like Peña, could not have been a member because of his ethnicity.
Rating: 5