WATCH: Tiffany Boone Speaks On Highlighting Black Women In The Movement
Starring in Apple TV+’s ‘The Big Cigar,’ the actress explains the important role of women in the Black Panther Party and beyond.
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00:00Women were incredibly important to the Black Panther Party.
00:03They were the backbone of the party.
00:05I think you see a lot of images of, like,
00:07the men with the berets on, with the guns.
00:09But there were as many women, if not more women,
00:12that are a part of the party as the men.
00:17My name is Oakley Jones, entertainment editor with Essence.
00:20How you doing, Oakley?
00:20Hey, Tiffany.
00:21I'm doing well.
00:22How about you?
00:23I'm good, I'm good, I'm good.
00:25So congratulations on the role.
00:27I wanted to just congratulate you about that.
00:29Thank you.
00:31For my first question, a lot of times we always see the men,
00:37not all the time, but the men were highlighted
00:40that were part of the Black Panther Party.
00:42For my first question, I wanted to ask you,
00:44how important were women to the Black Panther Party
00:47and what role did they play?
00:48Yeah, women were incredibly important to the Black Panther Party.
00:52They were the backbone of the party.
00:54I think you see a lot of images of, like,
00:56the men with the berets on, with the guns.
00:58But there were as many women, if not more women,
01:01that are a part of the party as the men.
01:04The women were foot soldiers.
01:06The women were taking care of the kids.
01:08They were helping to cook.
01:09They were doing other programs.
01:11You know what I mean?
01:11At one point, Elaine Brown was running the party
01:13when Huey was in Cuba.
01:15You know what I mean?
01:15Like, people don't realize this,
01:17but the women made so much happen in the Black Panther Party.
01:22So in The Big Cigar, you play Huey Newman's wife, Gwen.
01:26Tell me, what was that preparation process for you
01:29when you were preparing for that role?
01:32Yeah, it was really just me trying to search out
01:35any little line, anything about her that I could possibly find,
01:38because she's a very private person.
01:41And so there's no interviews.
01:43There's no, you know, there's a good two handfuls of pictures.
01:47And, you know, a lot of times I just have to read
01:50a bunch of stuff about Huey
01:51and hope that somebody would mention something about Gwen.
01:54So it was a lot of reading and research
01:56and trying to look for things.
01:57But also it was just trying to fill in the blank spots with Andre
02:02so that we could, like, make sure that she was full
02:06and their relationship had a full,
02:08you know, well-rounded thing for the show.
02:11So, and that's interesting that you say that,
02:13and filling in those blanks.
02:14You know, since you said she was really private
02:16and there wasn't a whole lot of information about her,
02:19how did you go about filling in those blanks?
02:22And, you know, how did you implement,
02:23I guess, your own style or your own little,
02:27you know, twist to the character?
02:29Yeah, I mean, for us, like, talking to Andre a lot,
02:34we were just really protective over their love story.
02:38Just showing a Black love story like theirs, right?
02:41And so for me, filling in those gaps was like,
02:44I feel like it would be really easy to just be like,
02:46oh, Gwen was just like this ride-or-die chick
02:49who just, like, followed him around
02:50and, you know, told him yes whenever.
02:53And, you know what I mean?
02:53I think it's very easy to just be like,
02:55she was in love with him,
02:56so she just went to Cuba with him.
02:57But I think for us,
02:59it was like making it more complicated than that
03:00because it was.
03:02And I think even in the things that I read,
03:04people were like,
03:06she was the person that he could be himself with
03:08and who really saw him,
03:09and she didn't take any BS.
03:11So it was like, how do we fill that in?
03:13How do we make the balance between her
03:16being this really fierce woman who, like,
03:18you know, a lot of pictures you see of her,
03:20she's like looking like this at everybody,
03:22you know what I mean?
03:23But obviously there was a softness there.
03:25She was a mother and she loved him deeply.
03:27So we just tried to make sure that every scene,
03:31we can show a little bit of softness,
03:32playfulness, joy,
03:34and, like, the hard conversations they had to have.
03:37So since she's, you know,
03:39not as known as some of her other counterparts,
03:41you know, when people finish the six episode series,
03:45what do you want viewers to take from your performance?
03:48Oh, I don't know.
03:50That's too much pressure.
03:51I try not to think about what people take from my performance
03:54because all I try to do is, like,
03:57make sure that I'm being honest and authentic
03:59with the character as much as I possibly can.
04:02And then once I do that,
04:03I kind of go, okay, good luck.
04:04But I hope that people get more curious about Gwen.
04:10Will they find out a lot about her from researching her?
04:12Probably not, because like I said, she's private.
04:14But find out more about her
04:16and the other women of the party.
04:17That would be great to me if you could see,
04:19oh, this is this woman in the party.
04:20I wonder what the other Panther women were like.
04:23And then go do some more research.
04:25That would, like, make my heart sing.