Pablo Schreiber explains the thinking behind Halo’s most talked-about scene so far

Master Chief actor Pablo Schreiber has explained why John-117 takes off his helmet during the Halo premiere.

The moment – which was fiercely debated among the Halo community in the lead-up to the show’s debut – comes when Madrigal survivor Kwan Ha aims a gun at the armor-plated Master Chief.

"In that moment, I think he took it off to make that young girl comfortable," Schreiber tells 12DOVE. "He’s basically saying ‘I’m not a threat, let’s get you safe.’ If you want to kill me, here’s my face, go ahead and shoot me. In terms of logistics, that’s the emotional signal he’s sending to the person he’s in the ship with."

Schreiber also dug a little deeper into the show’s decision to show Master Chief without his helmet, something that has only happened for the briefest of moments in the game series.

"From a show standpoint, Spartans take off their helmet and take off their armor all the time. In the lore and Halo mythology, there's no rules against it, like there are with the Mandalorian. The Mandalorian takes off his helmet, he's no longer a Mando, right?"

"But we don't have that constraint here in a TV show. And so it felt really necessary to get that out of the way early on in the season, to try to get the audience as comfortable as possible with going on this journey with John," Schreiber said.

We've also spoken more to Schreiber, as well as showrunner Steven Kane, 343's Kiki Wolfkill, Jen Taylor, and Yerin Ha. For more, be sure to read our deep dive into our conversations on the Halo series, as well as their reaction to the Cortana design controversy.

Halo airs new episodes every Thursday on Paramount Plus. Relive some of Master Chief's greatest moments with our ranking of the best Halo games.