Halo star Pablo Schreiber opens up on why the Paramount Plus series will show Master Chief’s face.
Before the new Paramount Plus series debuted, a live-action adaptation of Halo had been in development in various forms for many years. One of the biggest challenges of adapting the series would be making a compelling central character out of Master Chief. Throughout the series, the character is a man of few words and notably never takes off his helmet to reveal his face. As a result, most attempts at adapting the franchise have featured a robust supporting cast that would take on some of the dramatic weight.
It had been known for some time that the new Halo series would reveal Master Chief’s face. It’s currently not entirely clear when this will happen but star Pablo Schreiber has been adamant that it will. In a recent interview with Deadline, he broke down exactly why they were opting to show his face and what separates his character from someone like The Mandalorian‘s Din Djarin:
“In order to connect with a character, in order to know a character…you kind of have to take the helmet off. There’s no real reason not to. It’s not like in The Mandalorian where there’s a rule where he can’t take his helmet off, right? You only don’t see the Chief’s face because it’s a first-person shooter and you’re supposed to feel like you’re the Master Chief. This is a very different medium, it’s a television show not a video game and you’re not contested by the the need to feel like the audience is the Master Chief. This is now an opportunity for so many people who love this universe and who love this game so much to get to sit back and watch a story being told about the Master Chief, rather than being a part owner or a part creator of the story, which is what you are in the video game.”
Here is the synopsis for Halo:
Dramatizing an epic 26th-century conflict between humanity and an alien threat known as the Covenant, Halo the series will weave deeply drawn personal stories with action, adventure and a richly imagined vision of the future.
The Halo series stars Pablo Schreiber as John-117/Master Chief, Yerin Ha as Kwan Ha, Natasha McElhone as Catherine Halsey and Cortana, Bookeem Woodbine as Soren-066, Shabana Azmi as Margaret Parangosky, Bentlet Kalu as Vannak-134, Natasha Culzac as Riz-028, and Kate Kennedy as Kai-125. Rupert Wyatt will direct multiple episodes of the series, and he will executive produce alongside Steven Spielberg, Kyle Killen, Scott Pennington, Justin Falvey, and Darryl Frank.
Halo is currently scheduled to premiere on March 24, 2022. Stay tuned for all the latest news surrounding the series and be sure to subscribe to Heroic Hollywood’s YouTube channel for more original video content.
