Having found its Master Chief in Pablo Schreiber a few months ago, the series based on Xbox stalwart Halo has rounded out the rest of the cast. Natascha McElhone, Bokeem Woodbine, Shabana Azmi, Bentley Kalu, Natasha Culzac and Kate Kennedy are all now part of the ensemble.
Kyle Killen and Steven Kane are aboard to oversee the show as its primary writer/producers, aiming to bring to life the 26th-century conflict between humanity and the alien race known as the Covenant. Schreiber's Master Chief will serve as our main character for the series, joined by Australian newcomer Yerin Ha, who will play a newly created character in the Halo universe, Quan Ah.
McElhone will star as two characters – Dr. Catherine Halsey, the brilliant, conflicted and inscrutable creator of the Spartan super-soldiers and Cortana, the most advanced AI in human history, and potentially the key to the survival of the human race. Woodbine will play Soren-066, a morally complex privateer at the fringes of human civilization whose fate will bring him into conflict with his former military masters and his old friend, the Master Chief, while Azmi is Admiral Margaret Parangosky, the head of the Office of Naval Intelligence.
The other three are taking on all-new characters, fresh recruits to the universe. Kalu is on as Spartan Vannak-134, a cybernetically augmented super-soldier conscripted at childhood who serves as the de facto deputy to the Master Chief. Culzac will star in the role of Spartan Riz-028, a focused, professional and deadly, cybernetically enhanced killing machine. Kennedy has the role of as Spartan Kai-125, an all-new courageous, curious and deadly Spartan trooper.
US cable network Showtime used the Television Critics Association summer press tour to announce the new casting recruits, while also confirming that the long-gestating project will kick off filming (Otto Bathurst is launching the show) later this year in Budapest, targeting an early 2021 premiere.