Showtime casts Cortana, Soren-066 and others in its Halo series

A live-action Halo TV show is coming, finally, and Showtime just announced the addition of five new actors to the cast. If you’ve played the video games on Xbox platforms, you’ll recognize two familiar characters.

Showtime announced the newcomers on the TCA Summer Press Tour, filling out a cast headlined by Orange Is The New Black veteran Pablo Schreiber as Master Chief.

  • Veteran British actor Natascha McElhone (Solaris, The Truman Show) is stepping into the space boots of two characters: “Dr. Catherine Halsey, the brilliant, conflicted and inscrutable creator of the Spartan supersoldiers and Cortana, the most advanced AI in human history, and potentially the key to the survival of the human race.”
  • The Emmy-nominated American actor Bokeem Woodbine (Fargo, Spider-man: Homecoming) will embody “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.”

HOLLYWOOD, CA – AUGUST 01: Actor Bokeem Woodbine arrives at the premiere of Columbia Pictures’ “Total Recall” held at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre on August 1, 2012 in Hollywood, California. (Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images)

The next three actors are playing characters new to the Halo universe: Indian actor Shabana Azmi (Fire, Next of Kin) will portray Admiral Margaret Parangosky, the head of the Office of Naval Intelligence, while British thespian Bentley Kalu (The Edge of Tomorrow, Avengers: Age of Ultron), will play “Spartan Vannak-134, a cybernetically augmented supersoldier conscripted at childhood who serves as the defacto deputy to the Master Chief.”

Also on board are British actor Natasha Culzac (The Witcher, Cursed) appearing as “Spartan Riz-028 – a focused, professional and deadly, cybernetically enhanced killing machine,” and Kate Kennedy (Catastrophe, A Midsummer Night’s Dream) as “Spartan Kai-125, an all-new courageous, curious and deadly Spartan supersoldier.”

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The Halo story is anchored in a 26th-century war between cybernetically enhanced humans and a violent alien race known as the Covenant. Production is scheduled to begin in Budapest later this year. The Halo TV series is set to premiere in early 2021.

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h/t Entertainment Weekly