Yerin Ha.
Four months after graduating from NIDA, Yerin Ha has landed her first major screen role in an ambitious US cable series co-produced by Steven Spielberg.
The Korean-Australian actor will have an ongoing role in Halo, an adaptation of the Xbox video game which depicts a 26th Century conflict between humanity and an alien threat known as the Covenant.
American Gods’ Pablo Schreiber plays the lead, Master Chief, Earth’s most advanced warrior who is the only hope of salvation for a civilisation pushed to the brink of destruction by the Covenant.
Yerin is cast as Quan Ah, a shrewd, audacious 16-year-old from the Outer Colonies who meets Master Chief at a fateful time for both.
The series is produced by Showtime in partnership with 343 Industries along with Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Television. Production will begin in the northern autumn in Budapest, Hungary.
Showtime commissioned the nine-episode series created by Kyle Killen (Awake, Lone Star, Mind Games). The set-up director is Brit Otto Bathurst, whose credits include Black Mirror, Robin Hood and the upcoming His Dark Materials.
Announcing the show last year, Showtime president/CEO David Nevins said: “Halo is our most ambitious series ever and we expect audiences who have been anticipating it for years to be thoroughly rewarded.”
The video game is a global entertainment phenomenon, selling more than 77 million copies and grossing more than $US5 billion.
Born to Korean parents and and raised in Sydney’s northern suburbs, Yerin went to Korea when she was 15 to study at a performing arts school in Seoul.
Morrissey Management’s Mark Morrissey spotted her during her second year at NIDA and signed her when she graduated at the end of last year. She did a self-test for the Showtime role.
Last July she was among 10 performers who were invited to participate in Australia’s first Diversity Showcase for actors, writers and directors at the International Screen Academy in Waterloo
She has performed in the theatre productions Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, Colby Sisters, The Changeling and Caucasian Chalk Circle and in a short film for the Australian Chamber Orchestra.
She made her screen debut with a guest role in Reef Break, the crime series commissioned by Disney’s ABC network, which stars Poppy Montgomery, shot on the Gold Coast.
In July she will appear alongside Mia Wasikowska in Nigel Williams’ adaptation of William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, directed by Kip Williams for the Sydney Theatre Company.
CBS Studios International will distribute the Halo series globally. It will screen here on Stan via the streamer’s output deal with Showtime.