In 2002’s Solaris, she portrayed a human replica that gave new meaning to the idea of life and death, humanity and artificial life. In 2018’s The First on Hulu, she brought a nuanced CEO of a space company to life with a fervent dedication for the role that truly engraved her character in our minds, even though the series itself got canned after one season.
Now, Natascha McElhone has once again taken on the science-fiction genre in Paramount’s Halo, an adaptation of the highly popular military video game series of the same name, with an established and terrifyingly ardent fanbase that numbers in the tens of millions.
McElhone portrays Dr. Catherine Halsey, the chief engineer behind the Spartan program, responsible for the creation of Petty Officer John-117, aka the Master Chief. She is also the storytelling anchor around whom showrunners Kyle Killen and Steven Kane have spun their daring worldbuilding effort into existence.
While Halo admittedly revolves around Master Chief and Master Chief alone, the show opted for a different approach to set up the sci-fi universe, focusing instead on recurring characters such as Dr. Halsey to take us through the necessary exposition that gives viewers a semblance of what the story is about, especially for newcomers who would be hard-pressed to tell you the difference between a Covenant and a UNSC ship, let alone the inner workings of the Halo narrative at large.
The Halo team at Paramount is now gearing up for another run, with Fear the Walking Dead exec David Wiener coming on board to pick up where Killen and Kane left off. Addressing what we can expect from her character now, Natascha McElhone recently had a chat with We Got This Covered and teased fans with all the goods season two will have in store.
What, if anything, can you tell us about season two? How far into the production are you guys, and can we expect it in 2023?
I don’t know, I’ve no idea when it airs. Because we haven’t started shooting it. We start in August. We’ve had a few scripts in, which are really good and exciting. And there’s a very, very strong voice behind them. Good authorship. I think season one was a really collaborative experience. Everyone pitched in and there were a lot of cooks in the kitchen. And I guess, in fact, now we’ve got [Paramount Plus] feeding back and contributing as well.
And I’m sure a lot of the lessons we learned from season 1, I was telling someone earlier on — from prosaic to, maybe, the philosophical bit — the prosaic side being the Spartan costumes. Their armor was incredibly difficult for them to move in and to exist for long periods of time and that’s all been titrated and changed. There are lots and lots of changes and, sort of, enhancements that have been made. As happens with most TV shows after their first season, going back to the drawing board and taking stock of what worked, what didn’t, and what elements you want to push or amplify or draw back from.
I understand a new showrunner has come on board. Have you had the chance to talk with him yet?
Yeah, we talk. We talk a lot. He’s really smart and he really, really loves this world. And he’s very well informed and has made it his business to get across all elements, not just the canon. He’s a very experienced TV showrunner with lots of good material behind him.
Like I said, it’s very much a team, so I think a lot of what we experienced in season 1, finding our way through, it’s almost like cutting through a jungle. You’re creating a path, which you hope will be traveled for a long time. But it costs. It takes its toll. I feel now we’ve maybe done a lot of the heavy lifting and there’s a way we can make it a little easier. And also hopefully, we won’t have to contend with Covid and lockdowns.
WGTC: Does that mean we can expect the next season to arrive somewhat earlier than the first?
McElhone: I’m definitely the least informed person about production and airing dates and so forth.
WGTC: Talking about Dr. Halsey, she’s probably the most fleshed-out character in the first season, though she can be enigmatic at times. If I were to ask you, what would you say is Halsey’s ulterior motive?
McElhone: I think she feels that human beings have become stuck in an unhappy valley. Like an adolescent, that they need to get out of. She can help with this by mitigating against their destruction from the Covenant if she’s allowed to. She feels that we are our own worst enemies and we don’t have to live in this limited way anymore. We can have systems like Cortana which will help us make better decisions and be bigger, better versions of ourselves.
She is of the mind — you know, like lots of scientists, I suppose, and lots of innovators who work in tech — just because something’s familiar doesn’t mean it’s right. I think she thinks we’re wrong about our reality. That we’re anthropomorphic. And I suppose her obsession with the artifact and getting hold of it, she believes there’s plenty of noise and activity out there but we don’t have the technology or we’re too primitive, we’re listening to the wrong things. Perhaps the artifact is our conduit to answering questions that remain unanswerable.
I feel like she has this kind of crazy peripheral vision, where, even if she has a very healthy ego and she’s incredibly ambitious, I still think her curiosity trumps her ambition or her ego a lot of the time. She’s willing to be surprised. She loses control of Cortana, but she’s also amazed and excited by this self-perfecting mechanism that she’s created.
Do you think she’s really apathetic or just really good at hiding her emotions?
No, I just think unlike us, and our worldview and life experience where we value emotion or the feelings are of paramount importance, Halsey thinks progress is of paramount importance. And if that means her attaching herself to a cyborg or uploading her intelligence into a non-biological form, that’s fine. I don’t she has an attachment to the value of human emotion in the way that we might.
And I find that fascinating. I don’t think it’s necessarily wrong or bad. I think we live in a moral construct where we value feelings above all else. But she doesn’t. She can imagine something else.
Is there anything you can tell us about what the good doctor intends to do now? I mean, she must be planning something big after that ominous monologue at the end.
I want to know too [Laughs] but I don’t. I have lots of ideas and things that I would love to play, but I have to wait and see what I’m handed by my author.
Fair enough. Do you think she and John can reconcile their differences and maybe go back to the way things were?
McElhone: You can’t really put the genie back in the bottle, can you? But who knows in what ways we may both change? The wonderful thing about humans is how we can adapt so quickly and so efficiently. I’m sure she’s no exception and neither is he.
One of the fascinating things about that final scene with Harley giving the monologue is she’s wearing a white outfit that had the Arabic word solh or peace written on it. Was that a random design choice or did it signify anything about her ideology, plans, etc.?
I love to leave that enigmatic and unknown for the moment. I know exactly who made that coat, where it came from, and the story behind it. But I love that you know that.
Any other projects on the horizon that you’d like fans to know about?
I just did season five of The Crown just over these last few months. That airs at the end of the year. And I did a show called Hotel Portofino which is totally different from this and set in the 1920s and very domestic. Incredibly domestic family-based creature in that she runs the hotel and she’s very much the opposite of Halsey. She’s very much the moral compass and tries to do the right thing and is a people-pleaser.
You’ve had a lot of experience with the sci-fi genre in your career. Most recently The First limited series with Sean Penn.  Â
I loved that experience. That whole team was incredible. And LisaGay Hamilton is an extraordinary actor. I was sad that we didn’t get to carry on with that, but I get that it wasn’t especially commercial. And neither was Solaris at the time. Solaris wasn’t particularly commercial when it was released. But now it seems to have a cult status.
With Halo, I presume, the reaction was big from the get-go.
McElhone: Yes, exactly. It’s not a slow burn. It’s definitely an explosion.
You can watch all nine episodes of Halo now on Paramount Plus.
This interview has been edited for clarity.
