WATCH: Janine Sherman Barrois On Casting For ‘The Big Cigar’
The talented writer, producer and showrunner of the Apple TV+ limited series discusses how André Holland was the perfect fit for Huey P. Newton.
Category
🛠️
LifestyleTranscript
00:00 In a time like this where change continues to need to happen and young people are trying to figure out what they're going to become,
00:08 what are they going to stand for, when you look at someone like Huey Newton's life, you see it's possible to actually do something.
00:15 My name is Okla Jones, Entertainment Editor with Essence. How you doing this evening, Janine?
00:23 Hi, I'm great. How are you doing? Thanks for sitting down with me.
00:26 Likewise. I appreciate you. Thank you so much.
00:28 So for my first question, this six episode series that chronicles the Huey P. Newton's escape to Cuba.
00:35 Yes.
00:35 Why do you think this story was important and needed to be told?
00:38 I think Huey Newton's story needs to be told just in general.
00:42 I think it's been 50 years since, you know, he and the Black Panthers started the movement, over 50 years,
00:50 and we have not seen a true limited series or series about them.
00:56 So when I read the article, I said, wow, this not only could contextualize Huey Newton for all of the young people coming up,
01:06 and it could also salute all of the fight that people that are older fought for civil rights and for justice,
01:14 but it could also entertain. I mean, when you have a caper, you actually have an entertainment aspect to it
01:22 that you're trying to get something out of the country. In this case, it's Huey Newton, and that's fun and that's entertainment.
01:29 But in a culture right now where you're fighting just to get people to watch TV because they're too busy watching their phones,
01:36 it's hard to get people to tune into a biopic.
01:39 But here we have this caper story that at the same time flashes back and contextualizes how Huey, you know,
01:49 first started the Black Panther Party with Bobby Seale when they made the decision to open a law book and to decide,
01:57 you know what, how we're going to stop police from killing us is we're going to police the police.
02:03 We're going to go out at night carrying arms, which is our right under the Constitution,
02:08 and we're going to police them so that they do not feel comfortable trying to kill us.
02:14 And we were seeing killing happening throughout the United States, like more pervasive than ever before during that time.
02:22 And once they did that and then eventually took over and marched on the state capitol when Reagan was there,
02:30 ironically, it made the Republicans finally, you know, decide on gun control because they weren't going to have black people carrying guns.
02:39 Huey realized his mission was going to shift and it was going to be change, and he focused on the social programs.
02:48 And the social programs actually feeding kids, giving them pancakes for breakfast before school is what made the government make him a target.
03:00 They saw that he was trying to change his community.
03:03 He knew that young people could not learn if they were hungry.
03:07 People cannot function if they're unhoused, if they don't have food.
03:11 And so that change, the medical clinics, the, you know, other educational things, housing programs,
03:19 all of these changes in the community made Hoover and made the FBI realize that he's a threat.
03:27 And so I think in a time like this where change continues to need to happen
03:33 and young people are trying to figure out what they're going to become, what are they going to stand for?
03:38 When you look at someone like Huey Newton's life, you see, you know, it's possible to actually do something.
03:44 What made Andre the perfect fit for the role of Huey P. Newton?
03:48 Andre is truly one of the greatest actors of our time.
03:51 He, you know, besides I've seen him in so much from Moonlight to The Knick, he is to Selma recently, you know, Shirley.
04:00 He is layered. He is complicated. He brought the gravitas that Huey Newton has.
04:07 Everyone who knows Huey knows he was a fierce intellect.
04:12 He was, you know, a great listener. He was a big thinker.
04:17 He had the complications of, you know, what did the community need?
04:22 He thought ahead. He also, you know, was in love during this time period that we are focused on.
04:31 And he had black people in the community in his eyesight.
04:35 And he he knew something was wrong. He knew that the America dream, he knew that that was not, although we deserved it, it was not being given to us.
04:46 And so he wanted to level the playing field.
04:49 So Andre Daly brought that, you know, gravitas and he brought that intensity.
04:56 He's very, very well read. Andre knows about history.
05:02 And so at no point would he ever as an actor allow humor or the caper to take over the seriousness of what the Panthers were doing.
05:15 And I think Don Cheadle, who, you know, is one of another brilliant actor of our time who was behind and helmed as the director and executive producer of the first two episodes.
05:27 He made sure that Huey's mission was the first thing and the most important thing we had to keep our eye on.
05:37 And so as much as this is entertaining and as much as the caper is fun and there's a lot of laughs, these people putting their bodies on the line was serious and it was serious business.
05:49 [MUSIC PLAYING]