Joseph Morgan explains why his “Halo” role is not just another Klaus Mikaelson

“Characters who initially are seen as a villain, that’s what I tend to portray,” the “Vampire Diaries” and “Originals” alum tells EW.

Warning: This article contains spoilers for Halo season 2, episode 3, “Visegrad.”

Joseph Morgan loves sinking his teeth into a role that appears to be a villain at first, before slowly but surely becoming something much more complex. After baring his fangs as the love-him-or-hate-him vampire/hybrid Klaus Mikaelson for over 11 years in The Vampire Diaries universe, he spilled blood as the tortured DC Comics baddie Brother Blood on Titans. And based on his debut in the first two episodes of Halo season 2, it looked like he was once again playing the villain as James Ackerson took over control of the Spartan program, and he wasn’t there to play nice as he benched Silver Team from active duty.

But episode 3 subverts everything you thought you knew about Ackerson — but still has you wondering if he’s really the villain. It turns out that he knew all along that the Covenant has been on Reach, and he didn’t try to save all the innocent people on the planet. Instead, he secretly left Reach with a select few others before the Covenant attacked, but not before he fulfilled his promise to his father to not let him be taken him alive. Ackerson gave his father the pill that would end his life in the show’s most emotionally devastating scene to date.

“It’s certainly my favorite episode of the season, just because we get to see that other side of Ackerson,” Morgan tells EW. “We get to delve into his personal life and what drives him and the struggles he faces. We’re going to set him up as an antagonist, and it’s going to become quite clear as we move on that he’s not going to be the antagonist. It’s a mislead. That’s what everyone thought when they saw trailers for the new season of Halo, ‘We’ve got this British guy playing the new boss who’s going to be the baddie. We’ve seen that before.’ But we are taking that and flipping it on its head with this episode.”

Below, Morgan dives deep with EW on why his Halo role is not just another Klaus, how Ackerson will be haunted by his decision moving forward, and why fans should worry about who will make it out of the season 2 finale alive.

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ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: How much did you know about Halo, both the game and this series, before you joined the cast this season?

JOSEPH MORGAN: I played the games growing up. I’m a gamer, so I’ve played co-op with my friends, Halo 2, Halo 3, Halo 4. I was very aware of the world and the games and the dense mythology and lore surrounding it, and also the passionate fan base. I had already flagged the first season as something that I wanted to watch, because I love that whole world. Then I was approached by [showrunner] David [Wiener], who I’d worked with before on Brave New World. He said, “There’s a role for you in my new show.” I realized quite quickly that it was Halo he was talking about, and so of course I was immediately interested. Before I accepted the job, I read the first three scripts, and I thought, “This is just fantastic. There’s so much opportunity here to set the character up one way, but then to divert away from people’s expectations and take it in another direction and add all these layers and this emotional depth to it.” And certainly I was aware of the weight of responsibility that doing a job like this carries because of playing the games.

What kinds of conversations did you have with producers about who Ackerson is and how his story unfolds?

The wonderful thing was I already had this working relationship with David. In fact, after we did Brave New World, we’d been talking about a potential season 2 and how we were going to expand upon the characters that I played in that show. There was this level of trust from him, which was so gratifying for me. We talked a little about what’s driving the character and where it’s potentially going to go, the arc through the season. They wanted to know what accent I wanted to do, which was nice to be given such freedom. We talked about making him English, just because I felt like with the level of manipulation that he puts into play with different characters, the English accent lends itself to that with its melody.

But I was busy at the time, I was shooting Titans in Toronto, so these were Zoom conversations. And I was shooting on the day that they did the read-through for the first two episodes, so really nobody saw what I was going to do with the character until I was on set. The night before we shot my first scene, I went to set and we did a rehearsal, and I thought, “I hope they like what I’m doing here, because it’s a bit late now to change it all now.”

Wow, you were really down to the wire there!

[Laughs] Yeah. I had to find the confidence, which I know the character had. I tried to access that just to come in and command the room, because the whole beginning of the season, every room is his room, and every moment is his moment, as far as he’s concerned. He is in complete control and he’s steering the conversation where he wants it to go.

Your debut scene captures that perfectly where Ackerson walks in the room and Silver Team has no idea who he is, but he makes it known very, very quickly that he is their boss and he’s not one to be messed with. What a great introduction for you on the show.

That was actually the first scene I shot. That was a baptism by fire with that huge monologue in front of all of these actors who’d already done a season together and were probably thinking exactly that: “Who is this guy that they brought on?” We could use all of that in the scene, which was fun.

Paramount + Joseph Morgan on ‘Halo’

You’re no stranger to playing roles that first seem to be a villain, but once you learn more about them, they become so much more complicated and dynamic than just a one-note antagonist. And you have a very dedicated fan base that follows you from project to project after playing Klaus for so many years in the Vampire Diaries universe, so what is going to surprise those fans about what you’re doing on this show?

I think they will first and foremost be looking for similarities between Ackerson and Klaus because they want to feel like this is someone they know. That’s what they’re drawn to, because Klaus is the character they love. But upon watching it after a while, they’re going to realize all the differences that are there as well. There’s bits of me in every character I play. It’s interesting what you say about characters who initially are seen as a villain, that that’s what I tend to portray, because I try and look for those — the ways that I can connect the audience with this character so that they’ll be confused. They’ll feel like they want to root for this person against their better judgment. That’s what I always look for. I want to let people in and bring them on board and help them to connect with the character. I think they’re going to be surprised at the parts of the character that they connect with that are not so much like Klaus.

We learned so much about Ackerson in this week’s episode, including the fact that he knew the Covenant has been on Reach. Why did he choose to evacuate himself and a select few others rather than alerting the general public or trying to save all the innocent people on the planet?

He’s in an impossible position and he’s under a tremendous amount of pressure. You see that he has to leave his own father behind, and that is the person that means the most in the world to him. He understands the full weight of his decision. Were he to make public the situation, there would be panic and it would be very hard to save anyone. It would be a kind of free-for-all. What he’s really trying to do is be pragmatic about it and for the greater good to save the people that potentially are important figures moving forward in the survival of the species.

He’s making a decision that will haunt him forever, and he knows it. He is doing what he genuinely thinks is necessary for the human race to continue, but it’s an impossible decision. It’s terrifying and devastating for him. That’s what I try to carry through the rest of the season, the fact that nobody recovers from making a decision like that, from having that weight on them. Nobody should be put in a position like that, and that’s why it’s so difficult for him, especially after this devastating moment where he has to help his father die because he’s got to leave him behind. It’s crushing.

How does this decision impact the rest of the season?

It affects everything that comes afterwards. Some characters are left behind and have to try and make it off that planet to try and survive. Not everyone survives, and then there are these others who have to live with the fact that they did make it off, that they were chosen for whatever reason, or they chose to leave the others behind. Everybody is reeling in the aftermath of that. Then, of course, the war is escalating, so they’re dealing with new threats and they’re dealing with the confrontation with the people that they did leave behind, whoever made it off the planet.

For Ackerson in particular, at first, he’s trying to justify the decision and to see things in a very objective, matter-of-fact kind of way. But it’s not long before he starts to question those others involved with him and starts to question the decision that he made and the position that he was put in, and to wonder whether he’s been told the entire truth or whether he’s just a pawn in this game who was put there to make that decision, to take that responsibility, so that others didn’t have to. Once he starts to question that, that’s a rabbit hole to go down because everything that he’s believed in, that he’s held high, all of the reasons that he’s had for doing all of these things, suddenly are called into question. That’s shattering his perspective, his worldview.

What are you most excited for fans to see from the rest of the season?

The final episode of the season, because everything comes to a head at the end of episode 7. Then, in episode 8, we subvert expectations again and we go off. It’s like what we did with Ackerson in [this episode], we do it with everyone and everything in the plot in episode 8. These fears that we’ve built up and this whole thing that we’ve been working towards, suddenly that’s not the threat, this is the threat. It’s something that affects everyone and everything, and it’s so exciting. I can’t wait to see everybody freak out online about it.

New episodes of Halo debut Thursdays on Paramount+.

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