After a year since assembling its principal cast, Showtime’s live-action Halo TV series is back on track with filming, after taking a COVID-19-induced hiatus this year. The show’s official Twitter account announced this with a set photo of series lead Pablo Schreiber, who plays John-117/Master Chief.
However production is getting back into the groove with one teeny tiny change; the show announced that Natascha McElhone, who was originally set to play as Chief’s iconic AI companion Cortana and her human creator, Dr. Catherine Halsey, had to step down from the role due to conflicting schedules.
In her place, IGN reports that Jen Taylor, whom many fans of the series might recognise as the original voice actress of Cortana/Dr. Halsey, will be coming on to play the characters in the series. However, to what extent Taylor’s appearance on the live-action show remains to be seen, as she has only ever lent her vocal talents to play as Cortana over the years.
Just for context, Jen Taylor voiced Cortana for the first five mainline Halo games, Halo: Reach, the upcoming Halo Infinite, and various CGI TV mini-series based on the franchise. She also is the voice of the Cortana virtual assistant in Microsoft devices, as well as on the Xbox One dashboard. To see her suit up in blue will no doubt come full circle for both the actress and longtime Halo fans.
The 9-episode first season of Halo is slated to premiere on Showtime sometime in 2021.
Marion has a serious RPG addiction. Sometimes it bleeds into real life; he forgets to sleep because he thinks he has a Witcher’s body clock. Forgive him in advance if he suddenly blurts out terms such as “Mind Flayer” and “Magic Missile”, because never once does he stop thinking about his next Dungeons & Dragons game.
Si Jia
