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André Holland stars as the political activist in the story of how one of the biggest studio execs of the ‘70s and the social revolutionary’s world collided.
By Brande Victorian
André Holland takes on the role of revolutionary Huey P. Newton in the trailer for Apple TV+’s The Big Cigar.
Far from a straight biopic about the founder of the Black Panther Party, the six-episode limited series based on Joshuah Bearman’s magazine article of the same name delivers the high-impact energy of a heist as it tells the story of how Newton escaped the FBI and fled to Cuba with the help of famed Hollywood producer Bert Schneider (played by Alessandro Nivola) in perhaps the most ambitiously staged and fake movie production of all time.
“You’re the hot-shot producer, man, produce this,” Newton tells Schneider as they begin to cook up an elaborate plan to help the political activist evade a murder charge, as police attempt to pin him for the death of a 17-year-old sex trafficking victim in 1974.
Tiffany Boone stars alongside Holland as Newton’s girlfriend Gwen Fontaine, along with an ensemble cast that includes P.J. Byrne, Marc Menchaca, Moses Ingram, Rebecca Dalton, Olli Haaskivi, Jordane Christie and Glynn Turman.
Janine Sherman Barrois (Claws, Self-Made) is showrunner for The Big Cigar, which comes out of Warner Bros. Television, where Barrois and her company Folding Chair Productions have an overall deal. She’s also an executive producer along with Bearman, Joshua Davis, Arthur Spector and Jim Hecht (Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty), the latter who wrote the show’s first episode. Don Cheadle directed the first two episodes.
The Big Cigar premieres on Apple TV+ on May 17 with its first two episodes, followed by new episodes every Friday through June 14.
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