Halo executive producers Steven Kane and Kiki Wolfkill joined actors Pablo Schreiber, Natascha McElhone, Jen Taylor, Olive Gray, and Yerin Ha at Deadline’s SXSW Studio to discuss their new series.
“We wanted to bring the Halo ethos to a new medium,” says Kane, “and explore this, not only deep but wide canon…. and show audiences worlds beyond what the game is and world build in a different way to really bring this amazing canon to life.”
Based on the video game franchise of the same name, Halo follows Master Chief (Pablo Schreiber), a Spartan super soldier working for the UNSC, as he fights off the invading alien force known as the Covenant.
One of the executive producers, Wolfkill, started out working in video games, including Halo 4, before moving to television. “I’m much more used to building in virtual worlds,” says Wolfkill, “but at the end of the day they are both creative endeavors and their both about giving people an opportunity to step into the world.”
Also a veteran of the Halo series is Jen Taylor, who plays the AI Cortana. Taylor has been the voice of Cortana since the video game franchise began in 2001. “It is in so many ways familiar, and yet slightly different,” says Taylor. “I’m doing performance-capture for the show, which is what I have done in the game. The stakes somehow feel a little bit bigger… as far as everything, the story feels bigger to me, feels somehow broader to me.”
“When you’re talking about Halo, you’re talking about a first person shooter video game,” says Schreiber, “where you’re asked to be Master Chief. So its a character that’s vague… because you’re meant to fill out all the places that are unfilled in that character with your own personality. Now we’re making a television show, and we’re tailoring the entertainment to the medium, and its very important to get to know you’re character and empathize with your character for long-form television.”
Rather than focusing solely on Master Chief, the series also dives deeper into secondary characters from the games, such as Dr. Halsey (McElhone), Miranda Keyes (Gray), and new character Quan Ah (Ha).
“I’m very conscious of how much the fans love Miranda,” says Gray. “Her journey isn’t explored enough [in the games] so I’m super excited for everyone to get to see more of her and different sides of her.”
“We’re on a path to doing more with all the characters,” says McElhone, “and what really makes them tick. “What their history is, their motivation, what their world view is because their all very conflicting… and that creates great drama.”
“It feels like a lot of pressure but I found it really freeing to play someone new,” says Ha. “I was just telling a really amazing story about a young girl who is just a badass.”
Click the video above to see the full discussion.