Avatar: The Last Airbender‘s Elizabeth Yu Reveals The Touching Advice She Got From Charles Melton
Major spoilers ahead for Avatar: The Last Airbender. Life’s ablaze for Elizabeth Yu. The 21-year-old actress has come off of two major projects, back-to-back, in the past 5 months alone and her momentum will undoubtedly continue to build. In late 2023, she starred as Mary Atherton-Yoo, the teenage daughter of Charles Melton and Julianne Moore’s characters of Joe and Grace Atherton-Yoo, in the hit Golden Globe-nominated movie May December.
Fast forward to now, she’s living the dream as she stars in the live adaptation of Avatar: The Last Airbender as Azula, the fierce sister of Prince Zuko. “A huge part of my career and why I do it now is getting to play in projects that have a lot of Asian representation,” Yu told StyleCaster about the momentous projects. “I didn’t realize that Avatar was just a huge opportunity to open doors in my career, but also a huge opportunity to learn more about who I am.”
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Exactly 19 years after Avatar: The Last Airbender premiered on Nickelodeon, the animated children’s show is being reimagined as a high-budget Game of Thrones-like Netflix series. Though the show derives much of the storyline and looks up to the OG show immensely, there have been some obvious changes to fit a compact eight-episode season. One of them is the introduction to Yu’s character. Fans of the series will know that Azula is first seen at the end of season 1 as a non-speaking character, and eventually goes full force in season 2.
However, Azula is given some more backstory here and a more frightening, intimidating introduction. Unnamed and undercover, she lures a group of rebels to her father Fire Lord Ozai (Daniel Dae Kim), and shows her true allegiance to the ruthless tyrant. The fire that bellows beneath her is ignited by the competition against her brother Zuko (Dallas Liu) and his mission to find the Avatar. At the end of the series, Azula is spearheading a pivotal storyline for the next season.
I caught up with Elizabeth Yu to talk about Azula’s character development, the advice Charles Melton gave her, and working on her dream roles.
With the success of May December, how was the transition from moving from this one movie project to a really huge franchise?
“There was a lot of spotlight on Natalie [Portman], Julianne [Moore], and Charles [Melton]. We, as the kids in the movie got to lay low and observe the pros do what they do best. It was super helpful to get that slow transition into a really cool thing, which was May December to Avatar, which is a huge blockbuster, and getting to promote both of them.”
Was there any advice that Natalie, Julianne, or Charles gave to you on set?
“Charles was so helpful. He gave me so much advice that I desperately wanted, but I was too shy to ask him. He was so open and giving. In that sense, he has such a big heart and a huge big brother role. To this day, I text him ‘What do I do? I don’t actually know what to do.’ And he texts back, ‘Calm down. Do what you want to do, not what you think you should do. To that, you’ll stay. You’ll just keep to your heart.’ I feel like he’s a great example of doing that. The recognition he’s getting from the movie is so amazing because I know that’s such a core part of who he is.”
He kind of went through the same thing with Riverdale with the live-action adaptation route.
“I was asking him what was it like to be such a part of a project that has a huge teen demographic, and a huge production with a cast that’s similar in size to Avatar. His main thing was just to follow your heart and do what you want. Also, to be grateful and appreciative of the opportunity.”
What’s your relationship with the animated series? Was there something about Azula’s character that you wanted to bring over from the animated version to the live-action version?
“I’m a huge fan of the original series. I watched a lot of reruns growing up, and then I rewatched it multiple times. When I found out what I was auditioning for, I wanted to translate into the live-action version with Azula is the internal struggle that she has at the end of the animated series. When we look full first season, we’re planting the seeds for what comes later with her. She’s not so different from Zuko as you might think. I love the internal monologue that she may have at any given moment getting and we see this new side of her that we have never seen before. It was really cool to delve into that side of her.”
How did you channel these emotions to prove that she’s actually a complex character with the pressures of honor within her family?
“A huge part of the frustration that she feels comes from her brother—who’s a man and also incompetent. So that struggle of ‘I am a woman, I know I am better and I deserve it more than him’ was what helped create that dynamic of needing to prove herself to her father. Daniel’s scary take and playing that dynamic with him helped me understand her.”
He’s very scary on screen, but I imagine him being totally different off-screen. What was it like working with him?
“He’s just such a pro. Watching him, you see that this guy lives and breathes the industry. He just knows how everything works at the back of his hand. It’s so inspiring because as young Asian actors and creatives, he is what we want to be. I don’t think he needs to give us advice because I think that just his existence is so inspiring. Getting to work with him is next level and he’s just so normal, talking about where I was from. But, I was just so nervous talking to him. He took us all the karaoke to Vancouver, which was really fun. Getting to bond with him was insane.”
The role had you do extensive training and stunts for the action sequences and bending. What did you have to do in a day of training?
“I’m not a person who likes to move. I like to sit in my bed, hang out with the cats, and watch YouTube videos. There was a lot of work to be done when it came to training. I was there around five days a week from 10 am to 2 pm. It was a lot of working on form and making sure my body had the muscle to hold certain positions for the length of a take. It was a lot of work to be wearing armor that fit to mold my body and having to stretch it out.
But it’s actually really helpful for my character to go through the rigorous training process. She has that internal struggle of having to prove that she is the best. Myself, going through this process of having to be perfect in all my stunts but never really doing it before was so helpful in playing her. Getting to do those scenes where you see her go through all these forms and shoot lightning for the first time in a live-action adaptation was crazy.”
I think the thing that this adaptation does well is the Asian and Indigenous representation in the series. What was the environment like to be surrounded by everyone who’s so supportive?
“We went to the Unforgettable Gala and that was an event that I’ve been dreaming of going to ever since I wanted to become an actor. There were multiple moments when I was tearing up. I said to myself, ‘Liz, you don’t know these people. You cannot be tearing up at Greta Lee’s speech.’ It was just so moving. Getting to see her get recognition for the amazing work that she did in Past Lives was absolutely monumental.
I got to take away different things from Avatar and May December. With Avatar, we had a majority of the cast and crew members who were Asian. It was the first time I’d ever been in a room with more than 15 Asian people. It was so cool getting to see a bunch of Asian people excelling at what they do. And then getting to work on May December, Charles, Piper [Curda], and Gabriel [Chung] are all actually half Korean. So, that was a whole other aspect of healing and learning more about myself.”
What do you think fans will get out of the series?
“I know that they’re super excited, and they definitely deserve a really great live-action. I’m obviously biased, but I think that they can see a lot of heart and what the fans love in the show. It’s coming from an absolute place of love for the original. Albert Kim, our showrunner, said that the original show is the Bible and our show is a love letter.”
Season one ends with your character taking over Omashu. And if it follows along, season two will focus on the overall storyline of the Siege of Ba Sing Se, so what are your hopes for you and your character going into that storyline?
It was so important to me that Azula talks very differently to her father, Mai, and Ty Lee than she does to everyone else. But in our show, she doesn’t talk to anyone outside of them. I’m excited for people to finally meet that person that we all know. I wanted there to be a difference between her not being fully cooked yet to when the timer goes off. That’s when we meet her in Omashu where she’s finally the dog that’s been let off the leash. I’m so excited to be doing scenes that people remember from the original series because all of my stuff in the show is completely new. There are so many iconic and familiar moments of Azula, as we know, and I’m excited to get my hands on it.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Hair: Yukiko Tajima
Makeup: Daniel Martin
Styling: Juliet Vo and Andrew Philip Nguyen
Avatar: The Last Airbender is now streaming on Netflix.
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