Master Chief voice actor demands his voice be removed from the White House’s ‘disgusting and juvenile war porn’

The voice of Master Chief is one of a number of actors and filmmakers demanding that the White House remove their work from a propaganda video about the Iran War.

On Friday the official White House account on X posted the message “justice the American way”, along with a montage video showing airstrikes on Iran interspersed with clips from various movies, games and TV shows.

The clips include footage from Halo, Deadpool, Star Wars, Yu-Gi-Oh, Tropic Thunder, Braveheart, Gladiator, Top Gun, John Wick, Superman and Breaking Bad, accompanied by a version of the theme music from the Mortal Kombat movie.

Although some of the characters in the montage aren’t American (or good guys), the clip is intended to celebrate America’s bombing of numerous targets in Iran.

The video has provoked angry responses from a number of the people involved in the clips, including Steve Downes, who has voiced Master Chief since the original Halo: Combat Evolved was released in 2001.

The montage includes a clip of Master Chief saying he’s “finishing this fight”, and Downes took to X on Sunday to state that he had nothing to do with the video and wants his voice to be removed from it.

“It has come to my attention that there is at least one propaganda video circulating that was either produced or at the very least endorsed by the White House that uses images of Master Chief and uses my voice to support the war in Iran,” Downes wrote.

“Let me make this crystal clear – I did not participate in nor was I consulted, nor do I endorse the use of my voice in this video, or the message it conveys. I demand that the producers of this disgusting and juvenile war porn remove my voice immediately.”

Downes’s statement joined similar messages from other people whose clips were featured in the montage, including Tropic Thunder director Ben Stiller, who wrote: “Hey White House, please remove the Tropic Thunder clip. We never gave you permission and have no interest in being a part of your propaganda machine. War is not a movie.”

Dan Green – whose Yu-Gi-Oh character Yugi Mutou is also in the video saying “now, end this” – also condemned the video, saying Yu-Gi-Oh creator Kazuki Takahashi, who drowned trying to rescue three people from a rip current, didn’t believe in hurting others.

“It came to my attention that the White House used my voice to encourage violence in Iran,” Green wrote. “Doing so tacitly implicates Kazuki Takahashi’s most beloved contribution, which continues to inspire people to become who they are, and this was presented in a way far removed from the story he was telling. Takahashi died saving others. Yu-Gi-Oh! is universal, not political. It is disrespectful to present it in any other way.”