Paramount+’s Halo TV show cast brings the Master Chief, his allies, and his enemies to life on the small screen – and here’s how the casting choices compare to the world of the games. The first Halo Xbox game released in 2001, and by 2005 there were discussions about a live-action adaptation from Hollywood. Those hopes are finally being realized courtesy of Paramount+, with a new Halo TV series starring Pablo Schreiber, Jen Taylor, and Natascha McElhone.
The Halo series has been a long time coming. As executive producer Justin Falvey explained, “You have one chance to launch this as a scripted series and the bar is incredibly high.” The production team believe they’ve put together both a strong cast and a strong script, and they hope the show will be a hit. Paramount seem optimistic, renewing Halo for a second season ahead of the first season’s release.
Viewers will recognize some familiar faces among the cast of Halo, including as the Master Chief himself. Meanwhile, fans of the games themselves will recognize at least one particularly distinctive voice. Here’s all you need to know about the Halo cast and how they compare to the video games.
Pablo Schreiber as John-117/Master Chief
Pablo Schreiber (American Gods, Orange is the New Black) stars as the Master Chief, John-117. The actor has bulked up for the role, teaming up with celebrated Hollywood personal trainer Eddie Raburn to put together a strict training regimen. Naturally, Schreiber spends most of his time in the Mjolnir armor prop suit – but he’ll still be glad for the work he’s put in, because the suit weighs 50 pounds. “It’s 50 pounds of plastic and the suit is meant to make you superhuman,” Schreiber observed in one interview. “In reality, it’s the opposite. It’s a challenge to manipulate a cumbersome costume and find ways to shoot it so it looks like you’re super capable.” The costume design is seriously impressive, an almost perfect match for the Spartan armor from the Halo games. One key difference between Schreiber’s portrayal and the Master Chief of the games, however, is that his Spartan will take his helmet off outside of action situations. The original Halo games are first-person shooters, and the Master Chief avoids removing his helmet simply because players are supposed to be able to imagine they’re actually Spartan-117. Naturally, the Master Chief is a more fleshed-out character in the TV series, and hence he’ll be taking off his mask to help people consider him as a character.
Jen Taylor as Cortana
Voice actress Jen Taylor reprises the role of Cortana. She’s actually voiced the part since the first Halo game in 2001, and her return in Paramount+’s live-action adaptation is a smart continuity nod. Taylor had no idea how big Halo would be until she saw the excitement for Halo 2, but she always enjoyed playing Cortana; as she told GamesRadar, “Each game I felt like I got to know her better because I would have a year or two or three in between, and I would have to reacquaint myself with my little friend. I adore this character, she surprises me. It was an interesting thing to play the genesis and the growth of her more human side, it was interesting to play someone discovering that.” Unfortunately the design of Cortana has proved rather more controversial, because the Halo Paramount+ series appears to have dropped her traditional blue hologram look. Executive producer Kiki Wolfkill defended the redesign by arguing Cortana was always being adapted in the games themselves, reworked to suit the environments she’s operating in.
Natascha McElhone as Dr. Catherine Halsey
Natascha McElhone (The Truman Show, Ronin, Solaris, Designated Survivor) is perfectly cast as Dr. Catherine Halsey, the mastermind behind Halo‘s Spartan project – which involved abducting children as infants, putting them through a grueling training regimen, and ultimately conducting illegal genetic engineering and cybernetic experiments upon them. She’s younger than the character seen in the Halo games, but stands with the same bearing and conveys just the same kind of authority. It will be interesting to see how Paramount+’s Halo treats Dr. Halsey; Halsey created the Spartans, but she did so by crossing any and every ethical line, and the franchise has increased leaned towards treating her as a villain as the years have passed.
Danny Sapani as Captain Jacob Keyes
Captain Jacob Keyes is one of the key characters in the first Halo game, infected by the parasitic entity known as the Flood and ultimately corrupted by them. Tie-ins built up the mythos of Captain Keyes, establishing him as a legendary UNSC tactician and one of their best and brightest; his loss on the Halo installation was true blow to Earth’s defense. Paramount+ has chosen to race-swap Captain Keyes, with British actor Danny Sapani (Penny Dreadful, MotherFatherSon, Killing Eve) playing the part.
Olive Gray as Dr. Miranda Keyes
Captain Keyes’ daughter Miranda became a major part of the Halo story from Halo 2 onwards, but she’s been race-swapped as well – played by Olive Gray (Home from Home, Dark Money, Save Me). Although many fans of the franchise may not realize it, in the games Miranda Keyes is actually the daughter of Jacob Keyes and Catherine Halsey. It will be interesting to see whether that same family dynamic plays into Paramount+’s Halo series – and, particularly, how the three characters interact with one another.
Halo TV Show Supporting Cast
In addition to this main cast, Paramount+’s Halo series also features a large number of actors playing alien Covenant creatures and original characters. The Covenant aliens have been lovingly recreated, and in appearance they are almost identical to the games. Additional cast include:
- Yerin Ha (Reef Break, Troppo), who plays the part of Quan Ah, a young Insurrectionist who’s drawn into the main narrative and has no parallel in the original Halo timeline.
- Bokeem Woodbine (Underground, Unsolved, Fargo), who plays Soren-066, a Spartan deserter who appears in some tie-ins but will be a much more well-rounded, well-developed character in the Halo TV series.
- Shabana Azmi (India, Next of Kin, The Empire), who plays Admiral Margaret Parangosky, a UNSC admiral who’s uncomfortable with Halsey’s methods.
- Voice actors Kate Kennedy, Bentley Kalu as two members of the Master Chief’s Silver Team, a group of Spartans who don’t exist in the original timeline; they’re joined by Natasha Culzac (The Witcher, Cursed).
- Julian Bleach (Close to the Enemy, Emerald City, Heirs of the Night), Karl Johnson (Mum, Too Close, Suspicion) and Hilton McRae (Chernobyl, Victoria, The Third Day) as the Covenant Prophets of Mercy, Truth and Regret.
