Avatar: The Last Airbender star Ken Leung thought he was auditioning for a role in James Cameron’s Avatar instead of that of Commander Zhao on the Netflix series.
Speaking to Deadline, Leung admitted he hadn’t heard of the beloved animated series before he was awarded the role and laughed that, when he was told the role was for Avatar, he thought he’d “be blue”.
“I didn’t know the original at all,” Leung said. “Maybe it’s an age thing but I didn’t know about it. First of all, the audition, you couldn’t tell it was for Avatar, it was kind of disguised as a different project. And when I first heard it was for Avatar I thought I was gonna be blue.”
Leung said this served him well, however, as he didn’t have the pressure of knowing the original portrayal of Zhao and therefore could let his version of the character flourish.
“Looking back, I kind of love that I came in blank,” he said. “Because when you have ideas you can kind of corrupt a pure process. You come in blank, things will come into it that will inform your playing of it in a way that it might not if you came in with preconceived ideas or plans. So I was grateful for that.”
The Netflix adaptation premiered on February 22 and also stars Gordon Cormier as Aang, Kiawentiio Tarbell as Katara, Ian Ousley as Sokka, Dallas Liu as Zuko, and Paul Sun-Hyungas as Uncle Iroh.
In our 7/10 review, IGN said: “The live-action Avatar: The Last Airbender series enriches the original story with meaningful new material, but its breakneck pacing, exposition-heavy dialogue, and hit-or-miss effects aren’t precisely in balance.”
Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance reporter. He’ll talk about The Witcher all day.
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