How showrunner Albert Kim got the casting right for Avatar: The Last Airbender

The animated series Avatar: The Last Airbender has amassed a loyal fanbase over almost two decades—and for good reason. The aughts darling is a compelling, delightful watch, centering on youngster Aang, who can bend all four elements and must use his skills to save his nation. As beloved as it was, though, the Nickelodeon show faltered with its casting, using white actors to voice Asian and Indigenous characters. (M. Night Shyamalan’s 2010 film adaptation didn’t fare much better in this regard.)

Netflix’s live-action adaptation has arrived to rectify this error. While the show, which premiered February 22, has gotten mixed reactions, it’s impossible not to praise its effort to get the casting right. Avatar: The Last Airbender’s ensemble features diverse actors even from within the communities the show represents. The A.V. Club spoke to showrunner Albert Kim about his process to achieve this, the challenges of adapting a cherished TV show, and why authenticity goes a long way for a project like this.

Albert Kim: I was a huge fan of the original show. I watched it with my daughter when she was growing up. It was her favorite show of all time when she was younger, and I quickly became a convert and was soon watching it without her. When Netflix gave me a call about the possibility of doing it, I was torn. I was excited to be working on a show I loved, but I recognized immediately the burden it would bring. There’s a lot of expectation, love, and passion for Avatar, so we needed to get it right. There had to be a compelling reason to go ahead with it.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized it was an incredible opportunity. It had been 20 years since the original, so this could bring it to a new generation of viewers. Secondly, if we did a live-action [show], I knew we could cast Asian and Indigenous actors. That was incredibly rare, and still is today, so I knew it would be important for representation. Those are two big reasons I thought it was worthwhile to go ahead.

AVC: What did you make of the casting for the animated series and why was it important to get it right for the Netflix show?

AK: It’s the big difference between animation and live-action. In the former, we can’t see the ethnicity of the performers. The voice actors did an incredible job; they’re one of the reasons everyone fell in love with the show. Obviously, it was made at a different time. Certain sensitivities weren’t in place then as to the authenticity of the performers culturally and ethnically. That’s not something that would happen today again. I don’t think it’s any fault to the people making it back then or the actors involved. Approaching it from today’s perspective, we knew going in that we would cast this show and draw from the communities that were specifically represented.

AVC: How did you start on the casting process, especially considering it’s a pretty big ensemble? What were some early goals?

AK: It was a big challenge. We had early meetings with our casting directors about what we were looking for, which is Asian and Indigenous actors, as I said. That was a specific pool. We also wanted to be as close in age as possible to the characters. So, Aang is 12 years old in the story. We wanted someone close to that. People take liberties with age, but I knew I didn’t want a 20-year-old playing a 12-year-old. The heart of this story is about a bunch of kids who go out and experience these adventures. For that to land, we needed to feel like they were kids. Gordon Cormier was 11, or just turning 12 when we first cast him. Kiawentiio was between 14 and 15, so it was an important consideration.

At that point, we wanted to cast a wide net and see as many people as we could. I’ll tell you another challenging thing was, because this whole project was conducted under top secrecy, we couldn’t let anyone know they were auditioning for Avatar: The Last Airbender or a particular character. I wrote fake scenes for auditions. They auditioned without knowing what the show or role was, or that it involved a fantasy world. So that was a challenge for them and us because we had to look past the topic of the fake scene and find if we could see something of the characters in them.

AVC: What made Gordon Cormier the perfect Aang?

AK: There’s no one thing. He embodies Aang. His personality in real life is very much like Aang. Even when we were on set, in between takes, he’d be hopping around. He couldn’t contain himself. He had this natural exuberance, energy, and sense of optimism. Everyone who met him kept saying, “That’s just Aang.” It was that overall spirit he carried himself with that made us realize he was it. We would see other talented actors, but after every session, I would huddle with the producers and we’d go, “But what about Gordon?” We kept coming back to him. Once we told him what the role was, we shaved his head and did the makeup; everyone was staring and going, “Oh my gosh, that’s Aang.”

AVC: Prince Zuko’s role is equally crucial. How did you land on Dallas Liu for the part?

AK: I had seen Pen15 and admired Dallas’ work in it. I hadn’t thought of him for the role, but our casting directors brought him in. He was in one of our very first sessions. Again, it was one of those things where you watched him perform, and he’s so talented. He has a magnetic personality, but in his audition, he conveyed a sense of pain and feeling wounded while playing a bad guy. He also had the hurdle of doing all that without knowing what the role and show was. He read a scene that had nothing to do with Zuko. We wrote him a scene about his father challenging him on a math problem. He effortlessly carried different elements within his performance. By the way, I joked with the producers we could’ve created a whole new show with the fake scenes I wrote; we could’ve stitched it together into a new project.

AVC: When approaching a mammoth fantasy project like Avatar: The Last Airbender, how do you decide what parts of the original to include versus what storylines to cut? How did you piece together the eight-episode series?

AK: We knew we had to adjust the story to convert it from a half-hour animated series and make it into an eight-episode serialized drama for Netflix. It meant looking at all the story elements and laying them all out on the table. We wrote them all out on a whiteboard and saw where certain storylines could be combined, expanded, or woven together. Pretty quickly, patterns appeared. Some things made sense to us, like using Jet [Sebastian Amoruso] and putting him in the same story as the Mechanist [Danny Pudi].

When you follow that process, certain stories start falling out. Leaving certain things out was the hardest part because I know how beloved the show is. There will be fans of every episode of the original who will be up in arms we didn’t include some things like a fight sequence or a beloved character. Deciding what to leave on the cutting room floor was the hardest choice. It was in service of creating what hopefully feels like a unified series while hitting mileposts fans are familiar with.

AVC: How important was it to cater to an audience who isn’t familiar with the original show at all?

AK: It was one of the earliest conversations I had with Netflix. They felt like it was a show that could appeal to all ages and viewers, including those who never saw the original. I agree. We wanted to ensure all the die-hard fans were on board and we weren’t disrespecting any of them. We are fans ourselves, so it wasn’t hard. At the same time, we had to make sure it felt accessible to those who had never seen or even heard of it and knew nothing about bending or the four nations. There’s a bit of hand-holding in the early episodes as to what the world is. That’s why we opened our season 100 years ago, so we can establish exactly how this war began. It’s more in chronological order than the original series. It made it slightly easier to follow Aang’s journey, where he came from, what happened to his home and family, and the burden he’s carrying.

AVC: How did you ensure you were getting different aspects of Asian cultures right, because it’s a rare show that features various communities even within the diaspora?

AK: We always said we wanted to be authentic. Authenticity was our keyword for the entire production, from the writers’ room to the crew to the cast. It meant everything from being authentic to the original series to the communities that inspired the show’s story. We did a lot of research. We had cultural consultants to ensure everything felt true to specific Asian cultures. It informed our writing. It meant doing a deep dive into real-life analogs. The Fire Nation represents South East Asia, so Thailand and the Philippines. The Earth Kingdom was countries like China, Japan, Korea, and the Indian subcontinent. We did a ton of research about it. When you go from animation to live-action, you have to pay more attention to certain details. While animating something, you can gloss over some stuff, but while laying out food in King Bumi’s [Utkarsh Ambudkar] palace, it has to be real. We hired Indian caterers in Vancouver where we filmed to bring us all the food for his palace and his feasts.

AVC: The show has a huge supporting cast, including actors like Ambudkar, Daniel Dae Kim, Tamlyn Tomita, and Amber Midthunder. What was it like to assemble them?

AK: It was similar to finding the main cast, where we looked at several options. Even among the actors, a lot of people are fans of the original and were excited to be involved. We got inquiries from certain actors when we were far along in the process and word spread about an Avatar live-action [show]. In the first season, there aren’t a lot of roles for an older cast. So we were limited in what we could do. But there are a ton of actors that I have been a big fan of for a long time, like Tamyln Tomita, George Takei, Paul Sun-Hyung Lee, and Daniel Dae Kim. Assembling them for this project was a dream come true.

AVC: As you’ve said, this type of casting is a rare feat. What was it like on set and to bring everyone together for a project like this?

AK: Paul Sun-Hyung Lee, who plays Uncle Iroh, put it best when he said actors of color haven’t had the opportunity to participate in franchises like Avatar: The Last Airbender. It’s incredible to be able to do that now. It hopefully opens a lot of doors for the future. It’s amazing talking to some veteran actors who’ve been working for a long time, and they were telling me they never got to do a fantasy series or an action sequence or anything with powers. It’s stuff we see everywhere, right? But because of their backgrounds, these talented actors weren’t called upon to do that. This was a chance to give them the opportunity. You can see the results on screen. They loved it.

Utkarsh Ambudkar, for example, could not get enough of playing King Bumi. He went through a rigorous training sequence to do the bending. He was in an ice bath every night after training, but he kept wanting more. He stuck around on set and did his own stunts. He loved the experience of filming it. He used to text me at least once a week to ask how production was going. So that’s what made it fun for everyone, too. Another part of it is that our directors were Asian. The behind-the-scenes facets of the show made a difference because the writers’ room was also a great mix of people.

AVC: Do you have plans for continuing the show? Have you mapped out season two yet?

AK: I didn’t map out anything beyond season one. I wanted to figure out how to pull that one off. I will say, we have the benefit of hindsight now. And the source material is a solid roadmap of where to go, so that’s a great benefit as opposed to coming up with something original. You know where you’re going and what the characters are doing next. But for now, I haven’t thought beyond season one.