TV
Natascha McElhone, Bokeem Woodbine and More Join Showtime’s “Halo” TV Series
Pablo Schreiber (“American Gods”) had recently been set to star as Master Chief in Showtime’s upcoming “Halo” TV series, an adaptation of the video game franchise, and Deadline brings more casting news to the table this week. Natascha McElhone (“Californication”) and Emmy nominee Bokeem Woodbine (“Fargo”) have landed lead roles alongside Schreiber.
Shabana Azmi (Fire), Bentley Kalu (Avengers: Age of Ultron), Natasha Culzac (“The Witcher”), Kate Kennedy (“Catastrophe”) and Yerin Ha (Reef Break) have also joined the cast.
Deadline breaks down the character details:
McElhone will star as 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.
Woodbine will play 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.
The project, produced by 343 Industries and Amblin Television, is said to be Showtime’s “most ambitious series ever,” promised to “enthrall fans while also drawing the uninitiated into a world of complex characters that populate this unique universe.”
Otto Bathurst is on board to direct. Kyle Killen and Steven Kane are showrunners.
Best known to horror fans for playing Rupert Giles in 121 episodes of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” actor Anthony Head (aka Anthony Stewart Head) has passed away at 72 years old.
Daughters Emily and Daisy Head said in a statement to the BBC that their father “passed away peacefully of complications due to pneumonia, surrounded by his family.”
Their statement continues, “It has been, and forever will be, an honour and a privilege to be his daughters, and to have witnessed firsthand the impact both he and his work have had on so many. We know how dearly he will be missed by friends, colleagues, and fans of the shows he was in — he loved his job very much, and he always considered himself incredibly lucky, to have been able to work alongside such exceptionally talented people, in such wonderful productions, across a career that spanned several decades.”
Anthony Head more recently played Rupert Mannion in 18 episodes of “Ted Lasso,” with the English actor’s film and television credits dating back to 1978. On the horror front, Anthony Head starred in Darren Bousman’s Repo! The Genetic Opera, as well as 2011’s Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance, Let the Wrong One In, “Warehouse 13,” and “The Canterville Ghost.”
Also of note here in the world of horror, Anthony Head once played Dr. Frank-N-Furter in a London stage production of The Rocky Horror Picture Show back in the 1990s.
Outside the horror world, Anthony Head’s film and television credits well exceed 100 different productions and include “Highlander,” “NYPD Blue,” “Silent Witness,” “Doctor Who,” And Starring Pancho Villa as Himself, “Little Britain,” The Magic Door, “Sensitive Skin,” Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, “Free Agents,” The Iron Lady, Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters, “You, Me & Them,” “Dominion,” A Street Cat Named Bob, and Batman: Gotham by Gaslight.
“Buffy” actor James Marsters writes on Instagram, “There’s a hole in the World. Anthony Head has passed on from us. He was an unflaggingly kind and steady presence on the set of Buffy, and the best actor in the cast. He was the best of us. I was lucky to have known, and learned from him. He left the world a better place for his presence. Thank you Tony for all you gave.”
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