Jen Taylor and Yerin Ha On Being Halo's Oldest And Newest Characters

thegamer.com:

Yerin Ha and Jen Taylor are at opposite ends of the Halo spectrum. Taylor has been part of the series since its inception as the iconic Cortana, a role she continues in the TV series, while Ha is playing an entirely new character in Kwan Ha, who acts as one of the series' central characters and brings no strings attached from the games. For both of them, that leads to different approaches, and different struggles when it comes to portraying their characters on screen.

"The easiest and the most difficult," Ha says, thinking over the question. "The difficult part for me is actually working with blue screens and green screens, I think that was really difficult because your imagination has to be on point. They can show you a storyboard, but whatever actually comes to life is so different to how you picture in your head. The easiest, I think, is actually the more intimate scenes. Just the dialogue scenes that I get to have with [Master Chief] or Soren or stuff like that. Just tapping into that emotional connection."

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While Ha was learning and developing her character in real time, Taylor was bringing 20 years' worth of experience to the part. "I feel like she's like a glove that I put on," she says. "I've been doing it for so long, like 100 years. There are challenging things about the process for sure, but not about her character. Even the sticky parts of her character are things I, Jen Taylor, wouldn't do or don't agree with, I can still revel in because I get to play with them. Those are the fun things. Right?"

While Taylor has been playing Cortana for 20 years - or, in her words, 100 - this is a different way of telling that story. It's almost like a Cortana origin story, and that meant