'The Big Cigar's' André Holland, Tiffany Boone Speak On What It Feels Like To Start a Modern-day Revolution

In the newly release AppleTV+ series, “The Big Cigar,” André Holland stars as founding member of the Black Panther Party Huey P. Newton.

Across six, episodes, viewers watch as Newton attempts to escape to Cuba away from the FBI with the assistance of famed producer Bert Schneider in an insane and elaborate plan—involving a fake movie production—that goes from bad to worse to “worser” in every way can. What’s more? It’s based on a true story that was previously chronicled by Joshuah Bearman in article more than 10 years ago.

And while the theatrics are enough to keep anybody watching invested for the entirety of the series, what stands to be the biggest alluring factor is the way the film showcases what it really looks like to jumpstart a revolution from the ground up and the hurdles one faces when trying to do so. Whether it’s exploring the sacrifices the oft-unspoken women of the movement—such as Tiffany Boone’s character Gwen Fontaine, Newton’s then right hand and now ex-wife—had to undertake; showcasing the mental health struggles those fighting for a cause had to work through to keep them moving forward; or the lengths they took to ensure the ideals they so strongly believed in were spread far and wide at a time where it was dangerous to do so— “The Big Cigar” gives a good look at what it takes to make radical change the norm.

Though the revolutionaries of the past may no longer be here with us, their words. messages, and legacies no doubt live on and continue to inspire and challenge each generation to define their own version of a modern day revolution. In an interview talking about his new show, I asked what that would look like for Holland with regard to the intersectionality of him being both a Black man in America and an artist.

“In the work that I do, I always try and choose parts, take on roles that I feel like can be entertaining. But they can also be doing work in the world for our communities in some way,” Holland told The Root. “Sometimes it’s about educating people about things that they didn’t know about. Sometimes it’s about showing us in a different light, you know? But it’s always, for me, rooted in a sense of like, revolutionary love for for Black folks. I also think, to your point, it’s kind of impossible to ignore what’s happening right now with young people on campuses who are engaging in protest and so on.”

“So I think that I think we all have within us that revolutionary potential. And so I hope that my work, I hope can add something to the sort of canon of things that make a difference,” he concluded.

For Boone, as a Black woman and an artist, she expressed her gratitude over having a chance to shine a light on an unsung hero like Fontaine. In thinking of what her own revolution looks like, she revealed it’s comprised of questioning the status quo, saying the uncomfortable things and “telling the stories that people fight to quiet.”

“As an artist, I try to pick roles that I think, one it’s something I can learn from [and] hopefully other people could learn something from. And finding roles where I can play a version of a Black woman that maybe people haven’t seen on their screen before,” Boone said to The Root. “Because I know growing up I was always looking for more representation— and not just just having representation have representation— sure. But it’s about the quality of it and it’s about the nuance in it. And that’s what I hope that we’re bringing with this show.”

The first two episodes of “The Big Cigar,” starring Holland, Boone, Moses Ingram, Alessandro Nivola, P.J. Byrne, and more drop Friday, May 17 with new episodes appearing each Friday after.

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