Showrunner Kyle Killen - of the alternate-realities police procedural Awake - and director/executive producer Rupert Wyatt (responsible for Rise of the Planet of the Apes and “Why Cookie Rocket?”) will have their pick of whichever presently-unemployed high caliber actors are interested in being attached to a 10-episode season of one of the biggest video game franchises of all time.
The Halo source material is ripe for long-term prestige storytelling, so hopes are high that the talent finally attached won’t disappoint. Here are our picks for who should be cast in the show, whilst also providing a look at exactly what form the main narrative thrust could take.
- This Page: Master Chief Page 2: Casting Cortana, Sgt. Johnson, Arbiter and Guilty Spark
The Problem With Casting Master Chief
It’d be foolish to leave one of the most iconic characters of the last 20 years of sci-fi out of a Halo series with this much money and prominence behind it (this isn’t Halo: Nightfall). While the amount of screen time the Master Chief could get is up in the air, he’s a fair bet to get an appearance.
The character is a tricky one, however. As the high number of superhero movies which conveniently remove heroes’ masks to reveal the pretty, money-making faces of the actors beneath, keeping characters masked in the midst of heavily visual storytelling like episodic television is a challenge. Especially when considering part of the inherent mystique of Master Chief is never being able to see his face. After all, his origin is from that of a video game, where he is designed to be you - for the gamer to imagine themselves under the armor.
The creators may make the unlikely decision to keep Master Chief helmeted, a la Karl Urban’s take on Judge Dredd back in 2012; a move that was certainly successful with fans (if not the box office). But that’s no guarantee. With the Halo TV series, we could finally see the Spartan soldier underneath that big green helmet.
Master Chief - Jason Isaacs
The oft-overlooked magnetic presence of Jason Isaacs is a logical reach to connect to the role of Master Chief. He has an existing, positive working relationship with Kyle Killen having collaborated on Awake together as lead role Michael Britten, a man caught between two parallel worlds - one where his son survived a car crash but his wife didn’t, and one where the exact opposite is true. It was a role that Isaacs - too often saddled with bad guy roles (absorbing though they may be) - got to imbue with an alluring combination of guilt, wonder, befuddlement and pathos.
He more than has the chops for a role like Master Chief, which is relatively one-note; if anything, he’d be able to bring his versatility to the table in a confident and constructive way. Not to mention the fact that the Chief deserves an actor with an appropriately alluring baritone to anchor what is potentially a faceless performance. Isaacs has it in spades, as anyone who’s witnessed his intimidating performance as Lucius Malfoy in the Harry Potter movies can attest.
Which brings us to the final plus in a column crowded with them; he’s got the nerd cred. A card-carrying former franchise actor, he knows the world and everything that goes with fan-followings of that size: the expectation, the reverence, the commitment. Throw in the fact that he’s played a fair few soldiers in his time (Fury, Black Hawk Down, Green Zone) and there’s nothing he’s not prepared for.
Some die-hard fans would argue that Steven Downes - the iconic voice behind the character in every Halo game thus far - could and should be brought on to reprise the role, with some stuntman doing the Mo-cap (or physically wearing the suit). This would most likely not be seen as a viable option by Showtime. As a TV show is not a video game and a video game is not a TV show, it will be an opportunity to reimagine - even slightly - not just the character (with a bigger, more bankable name star attached), but most likely the entire story. In the realm of game-to-screen adaptations, the original voice cast don’t usually get a look-in.
Page 2 of 2: Casting Cortana, Sgt. Johnson, Arbiter and Guilty Spark
Cortana - Carrie Coon
Cortana, being Master Chief’s mobile, personal AI (acting as the ongoing tutorial instrument of Halo’s video game mechanics, before ultimately turning into an important plot point in every game so far), is most likely guaranteed to make an appearance if Chief is, and thus becomes an important role to cast. Unlike Master Chief, the Cortana hologram, of course, appears in the form of woman - with a face that needs to be digitized to appear on screen.
If Scarlett Johansson hadn’t already done the whole AI thing in Her, she’d have been an inspired choice. She has the right amount of sarcastic aloofness for the snarky AI. Considering she has already played that part, albeit under a different guise, it’s unlikely she’d want to do it again. A shame, as she is damn near perfect for it: a comparison between the Siri-with-sass character Samantha in Her and the no-nonsense guiding light that is Cortana to Master Chief reveals such a similar character progression (culminating in a singularity - true self-awareness of AI) that the likelihood of Johansson possessing a desire to pursue the role is slim to none.
Which brings us to The Leftovers star Carrie Coon. She has the same kind of coolly detached, irreverent appeal as Johansson, and her motherly, hard-ass role in Fargo’s third season also provides a good template for the role. With her star on the rise she’s a good fit, being just high profile enough to build a solid amount of both press and fan interest. Just like Isaacs, she carries with her a decent level of geek esteem after playing Thanos-flunky Proxima Midnight in Avengers: Infinity War, and her experience using mo-cap (if only for Midnight’s face) in that role would certainly come in handy for what would presumably be a fully CGI performance.
Sgt. Johnson - Isaiah Mustafa
If Sergeant Avery Johnson is used in the show (and why wouldn’t this fan-favorite be used?) it’d be with good reason. He’s exactly the kind of personality gamers loved to have at their side when playing through the main campaign of the Halo series, with a killer sense of humor and a take-no-prisoners approach to fighting fanatical bad guys the Covenant. Such a charismatic side character, so prone to stealing the show, deserves an equally commanding performance from whoever is chosen to play him.
It’d be a simple thought process to suggest someone like Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, being the self-proclaimed “franchise viagra” that he is. Unfortunately, he’s probably just too much of a superstar these days, and is certainly one of the busiest men in Hollywood (with no less than five active projects in varying stages of development and the second of two tentpoles, Skyscraper, still to be released this year). This means it’s unlikely that he’d appear for a Showtime series (especially as he has his own show Ballers on HBO). There’s no doubt that he would be a great fit - Sgt. Johnson held a veritable amount of palpable charisma even as a video game character, and there’s no one with more of that on the planet than The Rock.
The out-of-left-field choice for the role is Isaiah Mustafa. Mustafa, as many will attest, undeniably has comedic chops for days after his run of Old Spice ads a few years back, and Sgt. Johnson is arguably a comedic character with a penchant for eloquence. Playing Johnson up for levity as a respite from the humdrum of universal extinction is a solid screenwriting move, and Mustafa fits the bill just as much as Dwayne Johnson does. He’s also clearly not lacking the physicality needed for a rootin’ tootin’ badass like the Sarge.
Arbiter - Sterling K. Brown
The role of the Covenant’s lead hero - the other, fanatical side of the coin to Master Chief - turned ‘traitor’ cries out for a powerful actor who’d be comfortable doing mo-cap (it’s unlikely they’d go the prosthetic route as the body shape of the Elite class of Covenant doesn’t necessarily call for it). It’d be far too easy to go to motion capture maestro Andry Serkis, but that’s rather obvious. Serkis is obviously at the top of his game, but it’s unreasonable (and unfair) to have him the default.
A far more interesting choice would be a character actor like Sterling K. Brown, a reliable actor with a commanding presence whose resume goes from strength to strength - even elevating such ho-hum genre fare as the recent Hotel Artemis. If you want an example of his ability to play a character who questions the systems in place around him, look no further than his portrayal of Christopher Darden in American Crime Story’s first season.
Guilty Spark 343 - Alan Tudyk
The main villain of the first Halo game, a little floating HAL-3000 type armed with a dictionary and a glowing blue eye, requires a voice actor who can communicate all of the polite, murderous intent of the character with not only conviction but an infectious sense of fun as well.
Enter Alan Tudyk. No stranger to voice work - even going so far as to voicing a nervous chicken in Moana - or genre television, Tudyk has also proven capable of portraying smarmy, British-accented robots who have zero problem perpetrating violence, exemplified by both Rogue One: A Star Wars Story or I, Robot and see for yourself. Once again it might be an issue of not wanting to retread ground he feels he has walked before, but considering he has already provided a voice (of a nameless Marine) for 2007’s Halo 3, it would definitely make for sweet resonance and a sense of comfort for fans.
