Cortana, the blue AI that guides Master Chief through almost the entirety of the Halo series, is in many ways a larger than life character, capable of helping to save or nearly destroying the universe. But Bungie didn't give the character's voice actor much direction outside the fact that Cortana had to sound like "the girl next door" in the player's ear.
Cortana's long-time voice actor Jen Taylor (who also has roles in Dota 2, Left 4 Dead, and played Princess Peach for almost a decade) appeared in a Fall Damage video to try to guess some of her most iconic lines. And when recalling the legendary shooter's early days, Taylor said she "didn't have inspirations from other media" when creating the character.
"The direction I got was, 'Listen, we're walking a line here because you're going to be telling us what to do, so your voice needs to be pleasant,'" Taylor remembered. "And they really wanted the sound of the girl next door, somebody that you like. At the time, it was somebody that you cared about and wanted to hang out with, but you're not in love with… she's not that girl."
Hearing that is interesting because there's always been fan debates around how deep Master Chief and Cortana's relationship really goes. Do they share the bond of comrades or is there something romantic going on? I always thought the pair mirrored each other quite nicely: there's the human who acts like a machine and the machine who acts human both taking care of each other. But maybe all the Cortana and Chief shippers are projecting. Who's to say?
