Halo Interview with Pablo Schreiber and Yerin Ha

The long-awaited debut of the Halo TV series is upon us. Hidden Remote had the pleasure of sitting in on a roundtable and asking a pair of show stars a question.

The Halo series has been on-again, off-again for almost a decade now. The show was originally scheduled to come to Showtime and after the long delays and being pushed off, it found a new home at Paramount+. Then, finally, the show began production in November 2019, only to be shut down because of COVID. Almost a year later, they returned to filming and now we are a little week away from its release.

There is a lot of chatter surrounding the show and whether or not it will meet the expectations of the fan base. The show hasn’t even debuted and they are already upset over the idea of Master Chief (Pablo Schreiber) taking off his helmet.

One of the things that stood out throughout our time with Pablo Schreiber was how passionate he was about playing in this role. I loved hearing the work he put in to make this character work on every level. The idea of having to make this work, not just for the fans of the games but also the average TV viewer.

Hidden Remote had the pleasure of asking Pablo Schreiber, who plays Master Chief and Yerin Ha, who plays Quahn Ah, questions.

Check out the video version of the interview here.

Pablo Schreiber and Yerin Ha Halo interview

Hidden Remote: Pablo, did you feel any added pressure bringing this world-famous character to life? 

Pablo Schreiber: I haven’t felt any extra pressure. From the moment I was cast, it’s been very, very visceral to feel how much people care about this universe, how much people care about the character and 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 20 some years, we’ve all been playing as.

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. 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.

It’s a long-form television series and 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 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 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.

We also realized how hard that was gonna 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. [Halo will take give audiences the chance to] 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.

Hidden Remote: Yerin, how did you prepare yourself for this role? 

Yerin Ha: I actually did a lot of like physical training at the very beginning. I was doing like hit workouts and like all that kind of stuff. And then gradually as the shooting started to begin, I was so tired. And I had to find a different way. I burned myself out way too quickly. But I realized that I had to walk because Quan also has a lot of emotionally, you know, active scenes. So just trying to figure out that balance of physical and emotional and mental.

I guess, calmness and stamina [also were a factor]. The stamina is so important, but I mean, it’s really nothing compared to what Pablo doing. So I can’t complain. I just kind of chatted with all the directors, the producers, I did all that kind of like textbook handy work as well and that really helped inform my character.

Check out the video version of the interview, below:  

Halo premieres on Paramount+ on March 24, 2022