The Avatar: The Last Airbender showrunner broke down the importance of “authenticity” when picking the cast for Netflix’s live-action series.
Netflix’s Avatar: The Last Airbender is the latest major TV show to release. For fans of the beloved animated series, this live-action adaptation from Netflix has been a long time in the making.
Despite premiering to solid viewership numbers, Netflix’s Avatar: The Last Airbender has been hit with a mixed response from fans and critics alike. Dividing the community and kickstarting major debates amongst fans in regard to the show’s pacing, casting, and more.
In a new interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Avatar: The Last Airbender showrunner Albert Kim revealed what the casting process was like for such a major IP.
For Netflix, ensuring that the cast reflected the world created in the Avatar: The Last Airbender cartoon was pivotal when looking for actors to round off the list of characters featured throughout the series.
“It was a tall order to fill these roles. As you said, we were committed to authenticity, not just to the cultures that inspired the characters, but to the characters themselves. In addition to looking at Asian and Indigenous communities for these actors, we also wanted people who were close in age to the characters.
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So that meant finding a 12-year-old, or someone close to 12 to play a 12-year-old, which limits your options more.”
Kim also admitted that given how shrouded in secrecy the whole show was, he had to develop “fake scripts” for actors to read so that they did not know they were auditioning for The Last Airbender.
“And the other challenge we had was the whole casting process was conducted in top secret, so they couldn’t know it was Avatar. I had to write fake scenes for them to read and audition with. A lot of times they were reading off scenes about being in math class or playing basketball, stuff like that. I often joked with my producers that I wished we just compiled all of my fake scenes and we could create a whole new pilot by itself.
“A lot of times we weren’t, or at least I wasn’t, even listening to the lines being spoken, because they had nothing to do with Avatar. It was more about trying to envision these actors as the characters. And with every single one that we landed on, that’s the case.”
Avatar: The Last Airbender is currently available to stream on Netflix.
