Pablo Schreiber – HALO

By: Jamie Steinberg

Q) I just want to talk about stepping into the Mjölnir armor of Master Chief. First of all, what’s your experience in the past with the Halo video game franchise and what was it like to step into the boots of Master Chief?

A) My experience with the Halo franchise was I remember seeing it in the store windows when I was right around the time it first came when Combat Evolved first came out. I didn’t grow up with TV or video games. So I played at friend’s houses after school. I had played Halo a handful of times. I’d only played it in versus mode, never in story or campaign mode. So for me, the process since I got the job, which is about three years ago, the process has been immersing myself in the mythology and lore, and really being blown away by how much story was there, and how much story has been established over the course of the past 21 years – not just in the video games, but in all the media that’s been released outside it – the novels, which they sent me a couple that I read – the graphic novels, the animated shorts, the live action films, and the graphic novel. Just like an immense amount of mythology and storytelling, not just the amount of it but how deeply and richly realized it was. And for me, I come I come from the background of a storyteller not necessarily as a gamer, but so to see all that material as a storyteller and just feel the richness of it felt like I was being allowed to play in a really, really, really rich sandbox. And as far as what it’s like to step into the boots, the suit has all of its own complications. It’s hot and uncomfortable and challenging to bring alive but the visual effect of being in it is visceral, you can feel it. I felt that the first time we all the four Spartans that are the silver team were brought out in front of the crew, and you could just seethe look on everybody’s faces, as they looked up at us and how kind of impressive it was to see us all come in together, and that this was actually happening after so many years. It’s been a real treasure.

Q) So Master Chief he’s pretty much known to be like this tall, just huge persona. And you’re pretty tall yourself. So I was wondering if on the set was there, a point where you had to like lift yourself up, or they’re okay with your height or anything like that?

A) Well, I stand at about 6’5 outside of my Mjölnir armor. The the boots of the suit at about four or five inches. So, where I think in Halo mythology the Spartans are all supposed to be over seven feet, we’re not quite there, but we’re getting pretty darn close. And with the way things are shot on TV, 6’10 or 6’11 in the suit, looks looks pretty, pretty close to seven foot when, especially when you’re shooting. The Marines that we use are all people who are under six feet. So, the height discrepancy between the Spartans and the Marines should feel quite real and look as and look the part

Q) With all of the background that you mentioned that the games the movies and stuff like that, did you feel any extra pressure to bring this iconic role to life?

A) No, I haven’t felt any extra pressure. What I’ve felt from the moment I was cast,its been very, very visceral to feel how much people care about this universe and how much people care about the character. How many strong feelings there are about Master Chief. And it’s totally understandable when you realize that this is a character that for the past twenty some years we’ve all been playing as when we play the game. There’s a co ownership we all have over the chief because we all have our own version of the chief. He’s a symbol for all of us, right? And he’s been kept very vague because it’s a first person shooter that we’re invited to play as him. So we fill in the opaque parts of his character with our own personality. And that was the setup of the video game for the past twenty years. We’re making a television show, and it’s a long form television series that we want to bring the audience along with us. We want the audience to empathize with our protagonist. We want them to feel for him and and relate to him. And the only way to do that is to have access to the face so you can know what he’s feeling and what he’s thinking over the course of time. That’s how we relate to our television characters. And so it felt obvious and necessary that that was a step we were going to have to take and do it early to get the audience comfortable with it. But we also realized how hard that was going to be for so many people because of the feelings of attachment they have to the character. And that’s all good and that’s all great and anybody who is willing to take that journey with us and experience the character of The Chief in a different way than they’ve experienced it before because you’re no longer at being asked to be a co-owner of the story. You’re now being asked to put the remote down, sit back on the couch and learn about The Chief as he learns about his own humanity over the course of the first season. If you’re willing to come on that journey with us, I think it’s going to be incredibly rewarding. If you’re not and you have an opinion that differs from that, I totally respect that opinion. And you don’t have to, but I think it’s a world that’s going to be very pleasing for Halo fans because it feels so familiar. And it feels so much like the world that we all have come to love for so long. But I just as much am excited about exposing this world that I’ve fallen in love with over the past three years with people who have never played the game and to show them why we love it so much. Why the depth of this story, and the amount of mythology and lore that has been established by some really creative and wonderful thinkers is such a wonderful place to be. I’m just really excited that it’s coming out on March 24. All of the questions are going to be answered. All the people who thought that the helmet shouldn’t come off, have a look at the show. If you still feel that way, it’s totally fine. You don’t have to join us but I think you’ll see why the choice was made. And my great hope is that you’ll join us for multiple seasons to tell a really, really amazing story that will only get deeper and more complex and more rich and more interesting as we go on. We’ve already been picked up for a second season. We have an amazing writer, David Wiener, who is attached to write the second season that would that brings immediately a level of depth and complexity and intelligence to the writing side that is going to be felt immediately for the second season. So I’m so thrilled to get back and start working on that. And I’m so thrilled for you all to see what we did in the first season.

Q) I wanted to ask you, how did you approach the the voice of Master Chief like once you got the role? Did you get to talk with the original voice actor Steve Downes if by any chance or was there like any other research that you did as well?

A) Yep. I’ve never spoken with Steve. We’ve exchanged some some pleasantries on Twitter. I personally am a huge fan of Steve and the work that he did in establishing the character of The Chief over the last twenty years. One of the key pieces of my research was all the cinematics from the games which contain his performance over the past twenty years. And he’s a legend he is an icon and he did create this character perfectly for the medium that it was established in. But the medium It was established in was a first person shooter video game where the character was kept very opaque andyou don’t have a ton of character development or backstory or you don’t have a sense of what he’s thinking because you’re meant to fill in all the details with your own personality. This is for a television show and I think the most important thing to connect with a TV audience is that the performance feels authentic and true and lived in and so this version of The Chief is my version of The Chief. It contains a huge respect for what Steve Downes achieved creating the performance of The Chief. But it’s based on my own truth as a human being and my own physical capabilities, one of which includes the tone of my voice and how it sounds. And I have to perform the character in a way that I can connect to and feel authentically attached to or nobody else is going to connect with the performance at all. So those are my thoughts around that. I look forward to meeting Steve in the future because I just have a huge level of respect for what he did for the video game and establishing Chief. And I’m really looking forward to audiences seeing this show and being able to experience the character of Chief in a way that they never have before. The process of the first season is the process of John discovering who he is and discovering his humanity for the first time. So, we are all, as an audience, going to be learning who Master Chief is with him in a way that the character was never gone into before because it wasn’t for that medium. So, it’s a very exciting time to be a Halo fan. It’s a very exciting time to be a TV consumer who’s getting to be exposed to Halo for the first time. I’m equally excited for both groups. To get to see the show and can’t wait for it to come out on March 24.

*CONFERENCE CALL*