Alessandro Nivola as Bert Schneider: The film and television producer. He and his business partner Steve Blauner hid Newton due to him being convicted of murder and assault.
Tiffany Boone as Gwen Fontaine: The wife of Huey P. Newton who is a party member of the organization.
P. J. Byrne as Stephen Blauner: Bert's business partner and childhood friend. He and Bert helped and collaborate with Huey on a series of wild schemes.
Marc Menchaca as Sydney Clark: An FBI agent dressed as a hippie who never gives up interrogating the organization, family members and anybody related to Huey.
On Variety, author Aramide Tinubu wrote that, "André Holland is stellar as Huey P. Newton, but 'The Big Cigar' never ignites".[24]
Judy Berman of Time Magazine gave a favorable review and wrote, "That Newton’s wariness of mass culture frames the story from the very beginning is a sign that viewers are in for something much smarter, bolder, and more challenging than the entertainment industry’s typical, sanitized take on radical politics".[25]
Elisa Guimaraes of Collider gave the series 3 out of 4 stars. She praised Holland for his depiction of Huey P. Newton.[26]
The Guardian writer Ellen E. Jones also gave the show 3 out of 5 star rating. She criticized "that Hollywood can’t be trusted to tell the stories of Black radicals".[27]
Richard Roeper from the Chicago Sun-Times wrote a favorable review about the actor André Holland stating that he "does a brilliant job of capturing the complicated and charismatic Black Panthers co-founder".[28]
Nadir Samara from Screen Rant gave the series a average review of a 3 out of 5 stars, stating that the series is decent but critized the script due to it being "all over the place, neither the story nor the performance hit their peaks".[29]
Rory Doherty from Paste Magazine wrote that the series "is a slick caper that only superficially grasps its history lesson".[30]
On Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned a score of 61 out of 100, based on 18 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[31]
On review aggregatorRotten Tomatoes, the series holds an approval rating of 72% with an average rating of 6.5/10, based on 29 reviews. The website's critics consensus reads, "A magnetic performance from André Holland gets The Big Cigar close to lighting up, but a lack of narrative focus slightly dampens the spark."[32]
Notes
^Sources differ regarding the country or countries of origin. Some indicate that the United States is the sole country of origin, while others list it as a co-production of the United States and Canada.[3][4]