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, the men with the berets on, with the guns.
00:09But there were as many women, if not more women, that are a part of the party as the men.
00:17My name is Oakley Jones, entertainment editor with Essence.
00:20How you doing?
00:20I'm doing well. How 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.
00:31For my first question, a lot of times we always see the men, not all at the time,
00:38but the men were highlighted that were part of the Black Panther Party.
00:42For my first question, I want to ask you, how 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, the men with the berets on, with the guns.
00:58But there were as many women, if not more women, that 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 when Huey was in Cuba.
01:15You know what I mean?
01:15Like, people don't realize this, but the women made so much happen in the Black Panther Party.
01:21So, in The Big Sakaar, you played Huey Newman's wife, Gwen.
01:26Tell me, what was that preparation process for you when you were preparing for that role?
01:31Yeah, it was really just me trying to search out any little line, anything about her that I could possibly find
01:39because 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 a bunch of stuff about Huey
01:51and hope that somebody would mention something about Gwen.
01:54And so, it was a lot of reading and research and 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, you know, well-rounded thing for the show.
02:11So, and that's interesting that you said that, and filling in those blanks.
02:14You know, since you said she was really private and 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, I guess, your own style
02:26or your own little, you know, twist to the character?
02:30Yeah, 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, I feel like it would be really easy
02:45to just be like, oh, Gwen was just, like, this ride-or-die chick
02:49who just, like, followed him around and, you know, told him yes whenever.
02:53And, you know what I mean?
02:53I think it's very easy to just be like, she was in love with him,
02:56so she just went to Cuba with him.
02:57But I think for us, it was, like, making it more complicated than that
03:01because it was.
03:01And I think even in the things that I read, people were like,
03:06she was the person that he could be himself with and who really saw him,
03:10and 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 being this really fierce woman
03:17who, like, you know, a lot of pictures you see of her,
03:20she's, like, looking like this at everybody, you 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 we can show a little bit
03:32of softness, playfulness, joy, and, like, the hard conversations
03:36they had to have.
03:37So since she's, you know, not 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?
03:49Oh, 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, make sure that I'm being honest
03:59and authentic with the character as much as I possibly can.
04:02And then once I do that, I kind of go, okay, good luck.
04:05But 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 and the other women of the party.
04:17That would be great to me if you could see,
04:19oh, there's just this woman in the party.
04:21I wonder what the other Panther women were like.
04:23And then go do some more research.
04:25That would, like, make my heart sing.
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