Avatar: The Last Airbender and James Cameron’s Avatar film franchise are each pop culture giants in their own right, but with similar titles, it’s easy for the uninitiated to mix them up.
One notable case is Ken Leung, who stars in the 2024 live-action series adaptation of Avatar: The Last Airbender. In a recent interview, the veteran actor revealed that he had thought he was auditioning for the famous movies instead!
READ: Ken Leung Reveals Mistaking “Avatar: The Last Airbender” for James Cameron’s “Avatar” During Auditions
Speaking to Deadline, Ken Leung discussed the confidential audition process for the adaptation of the hit 2005 Nickelodeon animated series. The Netflix production went to great lengths to keep information as obscure as possible, including having fake sample scenes that were set in a bank. According to the actor, auditionees couldn’t instantly tell that it was for Avatar: The Last Airbender since it was “disguised as different projects.”
However, when the project’s title was finally dropped, Ken mistook it for the James Cameron film franchise. “When I first heard it was for Avatar, I thought I was going to be blue,” he confessed, referencing the films’ blue-hued Na’vi creatures. “I didn’t know the original at all. Maybe it’s an age thing but I didn’t know about it.”
The Netflix series follows the main storyline of the animated show, set in a fictional world divided into four nations–the Water Tribe, the Earth Kingdom, the Fire Nation, and the Air Nomads. Harmony among the nations cracked after the attack of the Fire Nation, with only the Avatar (played by Filipino-Canadian actor Gordon Cormier) as their saving grace.
In the live-action series, Ken Leung portrays the first season’s main antagonist, the Fire Nation’s ruthless Admiral Zhao. In the same interview, Ken admits that being initially unfamiliar with the source helped his preparation. “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. If you come in blank, things will come into it that will inform your playing of it.”
Avatar: The Last Airbender is streaming on Netflix.
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