Halo’s Pablo Schreiber on Filming Season 2 This Summer & Playing Master Chief

With the first episode of the Halo series arriving Thursday on Paramount+, I recently got to speak with Pablo Schreiber about playing Master Chief in the highly anticipated series. Based on the video game franchise of the same name, Halo follows a 26th century showdown between humanity and an intergalactic threat known as the Covenant. In an effort to win the war, Dr. Halsey (Natascha McElhone) creates genetically enhanced super-soldiers named the Spartans to combat the alien force. The series follows Master Chief Spartan John-117 (Schreiber), the commander of a Spartan unit. Although drawing heavily from the video game’s stories, the show takes place in its own timeline.

During the interview, Schreiber talked about what the series is about, how the show explores who Master Chief is and will “investigate aspects of his humanity and what makes him tick,” what it was like finding out he landed the lead role, and why they sometimes had three Master Chiefs on different sets while they were filming. In addition, with Halo already being renewed, Schreiber revealed why they will start filming Season 2 this summer.

Halo is produced by Showtime in partnership with 343 Industries, along with Amblin Television. Halo also stars Jen Taylor, Bokeem Woodbine, Shabana Azmi, Natasha Culzac, Olive Gray, Yerin Ha, Bentley Kalu, Kate Kennedy, Charlie Murphy, Danny Sapani, Ryan McParland, Burn Gorman, and Fiona O’Shaughnessy. Steven Kane (The Last Ship) and Kyle Killen serve as showrunners. Kiki Wolfkill, Frank O’Connor, and Bonnie Ross serve as executive producers for 343 Industries.

Watch what Pablo Schreiber had to say in the player above, or you can read our conversation below.

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COLLIDER: I think the first thing people want to know is how often is it actually you on set wearing the armor doing all the stuff? What can you say?

PABLO SCHREIBER: The only time it’s not is when there’s massive stunt sequences and obviously, when they hook somebody up to wires and they don’t want me to get hurt, they throw somebody else in. Because of the demands of the role and I’m in almost every scene, there was times where we would have three chiefs on different sets around the lot. I would be somewhere doing a dramatic scene with the helmet off and then Justin Howell, my incredibly capable stunt guy, would be hooked up to ropes somewhere doing flips and aerials. Then we’d have a second stunt guy doing some running shot or something like that. That was really when we were block shooting all the action stuff and things were getting very busy and very hectic. There were times that there were up to three chiefs walking around the set.

Because the show’s been green lit for season two, I think everyone wants to know when are you actually going to start filming season two because I’m sure they’re going to want to see it as soon as they can.

SCHREIBER: We’ll be filming again this summer. We’re still figuring out exactly what the start date is, but we will be in production by summertime because we have a hard date that we need to be up and running in order to get some location that is weather affected.

You’ve been working for a while. What was it actually like when they call you and say we want you to play Master Chief? Because it’s the lead, it’s the role.

SCHREIBER: It’s surreal. I’ve been around for a long time as you stated and been really fortunate and lucky with the characters that I have gotten to do and work on. I feel really, really fortunate with the collaborators I’ve been able to work with. But this is a career moment, right? It’s an opportunity, my first opportunity, to play the lead of a show. And that comes with a lot of responsibilities, first of all, and just how you interact on set and the tone that you set with crew and with the rest of the cast. Then you just want it to be as good as it can be. That’s really where I make my bread and butter is just working as hard as I can every day to elevate the experience to the thing… bring it to the place that I want it to be at. We’re working harder and harder every single day that I’m involved with this show to make it the show that I think we all want to make.

Talk a little bit about finding Master Chief’s voice and John’s voice, because I would imagine as John progresses and finds more of his humanity, perhaps his voice and the way he acts might change.

SCHREIBER: Well, you have, obviously the video game lore establishes a character who’s in his suit of Mjolnir armor. He’s always got his helmet on. That’s the only chief we know from the games. That chief was played and established by an incredibly capable and talented voice actor named Steve Downes, who’s been the voice of the chief for the past 20 years and he’s amazing. Everything he’s done, I’m a huge fan of. This obviously is my interpretation of the character and my chief and the only reason to make a show about the Master Chief and about Halo is to get underneath the suit, break down the character and investigate aspects of his humanity and what makes him tick.

The effects of war on the soldier in our society is one of the major themes that were we’re looking at and him discovering… We meet a character who’s cut off from his humanity, who doesn’t have access to his emotions, who doesn’t even have memories of his childhood. It starts there and he has an interaction with an artifact that brings back some memories from his childhood. He begins the process of uncovering his own

personal history. How he interacts with people when he’s in his suit is obviously one thing because he’s a super soldier. He’s humanity’s last hope. He has a history of carrying the world on his shoulders, but there’s also a human being inside there who is beginning to realize what that means as the course of the season goes on. So how he relates to that daunting, his own daunting humanity, will be distinct from how he relates to the world inside that massive hunk of metal/plastic.

Key word is plastic. On that note, I already got to go. I’m just going to say man, congrats, and I really can’t wait to watch episode three and beyond.

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