Shabana Azmi on colour-blind casting in Halo: None of them is cast due to their ethnicity, that's refreshing

The veteran actor plays Admiral Margaret Paragonsky, the chief of the Office of Naval Intelligence.

Shabana Azmi began filming Steven Spielberg's Halo a film based on a popular computer game, in early 2020. The sci-fi television series, in which the actor plays Admiral Margaret Paragonsky, the chief of the Office of Naval Intelligence, will premiere on Paramount+ on March 24 after two years.

It was an absolute delight for Azmi to be a part of a project that used color-blind casting. Talking about the same, she told me at mid-day that Halo has actors who are Korean, African American, English, Indian, and Hungarian. No one is cast because of their race, and no one is forced to adopt an accent that is not their own. She exclaimed that it was really refreshing.

For the uninitiated, in recent years, color-blind casting, in which one's ethnicity is not taken into account when casting for a role, has grown in popularity. While the practice has its critics, it is mainly welcomed because it increases screen variety.

Azmi further explained that every role that she has performed in the West in the previous 34 years has been that of a South Asian, and they weren't seen on the screen until lately. She remembers asking John Schlesinger when working on Madame Sousatzka in 1988 why the mother in the book was a Jew and why he decided to make her Indian. To which he remarked that Indians are so much a part of the British fabric that it must result in the decisions we make. It makes sense to be inclusive and diverse as the globe becomes a global village, added Shabana. The fight for colour-blind casting began nearly 40 years ago, and the results are finally here.

Her character, according to the senior actor, is a tough, no-nonsense woman. However, one can't play a character with just one surname, so she had to discover her vulnerable area. Azmi's conflicted since she's been taught to follow the laws, but she still lets the shady scientist control her.

Before Azmi arrived on set, showrunner-director Otto Bathurst arranged for her to see 343 Industries, the Halo world's lab. Calling it such a strange and interesting world, the actor had no idea what game it was, but her 12-year-old nephew Viraaj, who had never given her a second thought before, was blown away by his Shabana bua.

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