EXCLUSIVE: Olli Haaskivi (Oppenheimer) is the latest actor to join Apple TV+’s six-episode Huey P. Newton series The Big Cigar in a recurring role. He joins an ensemble fronted by André Holland, which also includes the previously announced Alessandro Nivola, Tiffany Boone, PJ Byrne, Marc Menchaca, Jordane Christie and Moses Ingram.
Based on the Playboy magazine article of the same name by Argo‘s Joshuah Bearman, The Big Cigar will tell the extraordinary, hilarious, almost-too-good-to-be-true story of how Black Panther leader Newton (Holland) relied on his best friend, Bert Schneider (Nivola) — the Hollywood producer behind Easy Rider — to elude a nationwide manhunt and escape to Cuba while being pursued into exile by the FBI.
Haaskivi will play Artie Ross, the screenwriter behind such titles as Brubaker and Creature from the Black Lagoon, who was at one point blacklisted as the Red Scare infiltrated Hollywood.
The Big Cigar‘s showrunner is NAACP Image Award winner Janine Sherman Barrois (Claws, The Kings of Napa). Jim Hecht (Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty) wrote the series’ first episode, with Don Cheadle directing and executive producing the first two. The show hails from Warner Bros. Television, where Barrois and her Folding Chair Productions are under an overall deal. Barrois and Hecht are exec producing alongside Bearman, Joshua Davis and Arthur Spector (Little America) through their production company Epic, a division of Vox Media Studios.
Haaskivi has previously appeared on such series as Queer as Folk, Winning Time, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, The Plot Against America and Manifest, among many others. Notable film credits include The Miseducation of Bindu, Motherless Brooklyn, Nancy and Who We Are Now. Also coming up for the actor is Christopher Nolan’s film Oppenheimer, which is slated for release via Universal on July 21, 2023.
Haaskivi is represented by Lasher Group, Innovative Artists and J.R. McGinnis at Felker Toczek Suddleson.