Pleased As Punch With The Casting - Tumblr Posts
Update: This has now been officially announced by Netflix!
Aang, Katara, Sokka, and Zuko casting
Avatar News has your exclusive first look at the main cast of the live-action Netflix Original Series Avatar: The Last Airbender. Four fresh faces take center stage in four of the biggest roles in the world.
Filming begins in November 2021 in Vancouver and is set to last until May 2022.
Before I go any further, I want to acknowledge that this is monumentally huge news and for that reason I want to be completely transparent about the source. I’m willing to put my reputation behind this with 99.9% confidence, but it’s not official or confirmed by Netflix/anyone (yet).
Throughout the summer, crew positions have been filling up and casting calls have been taking place, corroborated and confirmed by multiple different avenues of legitimate industry sources. In the last few days, a lot of major gears have suddenly turned. Long story short, people are starting to follow each other on Instagram– actors, and confirmed crew members. After extensive research, I’m basically certain that four young actors who all started following each other, as well as following and being followed by various confirmed crew members, have been cast in the four main roles: Aang, Katara, Sokka, Zuko. The timelines match up, as do the casting calls.
For the record, here is a list of exactly who is following who at the time of writing this, and I want to repeat that again the crew members are confirmed by actual sources, not follows. (I also want to note that the lead actor of Netflix’s Shadow and Bone, Jessie Mei Li, has publicly confirmed in interviews that the cast for that series was guessed before it was announced by the same method: Instagram follows.)
And now, without further ado…
Gordon Cormier—Aang
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Age 12
Filipino-Canadian
From Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Best known for Netflix’s Lost in Space and Paramount+’s The Stand
You can find more pictures (and a video doing martial arts!) of Gordon Cormier here.
Kiawentiio—Katara
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Age 14
Indigenous North American - Mohawk
From Akwesasne, Ontario, Canada
Best known for CBC and Netflix’s Anne with an E
In an April 2021 interview, she said: “It would be a dream if I could work on Avatar: The Last Airbender. I’m dying to be Katara.”
You can find more pictures of Kiawentiio here.
Ian Ousley—Sokka
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Age 19
Indigenous North American - Cherokee
Best known for Netflix’s 13 Reasons Why and Apple TV+’s Physical
As mentioned above, there’s no publicly available background information for this young actor. The casting call for both Katara and Sokka called for Native American/Indigenous North American. He was cast to be the biological brother of Kiawentiio Tarbell’s character, and she’s indigenous Mohawk.
You can find more pictures of Ian Ousley here.
Dallas Liu—Zuko
Fact file
Age 19
Chinese-Indonesian-American
From Los Angeles, California, USA
Best known for Hulu’s PEN15 and Marvel Studios’ Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (upcoming)
You can find more pictures of Dallas Liu here.
My deepest congratulations to these four young stars! Let’s welcome them with respect, and let’s be thoughtful about their privacy and mental health. Not just today, but for all the years ahead as they go on their epic quest to defeat the Fire Nation and bring balance to the world. :)