After becoming one of Hollywood’s most popular action stars with her role in the Predator prequel Prey, Amber Midthunder is looking ahead to where she’s heading next with her career. In a new chat with The Hollywood Reporter, Midthunder spoke about her career, first touching on working on Prey. She described feeling a “difference sense of home and comfort in shooting a movie” as part of an all-Indigenous cast.
“I had not had a work experience that was like that, ever,” Midthunder noted.
In September, cast members were announced for a live-action series adaptation of Avatar: The Last Airbender that’s now in development. Midthunder was among the names announced, as she plays the recurring role of Princess Yue. The actress told THR that she was particularly excited for this role as she’s been a fan of the franchise ever since she was a child, essentially making this casting feel like a dream come true.
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“I was a huge fan as a kid,” Midthunder explained. “I loved it, I watched it, I was obsessed with it. I thought I was a waterbender.”
Meanwhile, the actress also shared a few more fun facts about herself. She named Jennifer Lawrence as someone she’s dying to work with while Buttercup from The Powerpuff Girls is the fictional character she most identified with growing up. Perhaps there’s still time to get her involved with the upcoming live-action Powerpuff Girls series that is in the process of getting retooled with different cast members.
Related: What Netflix’s Avatar: The Last Airbender Needs to Get Right
Netflix Will Reimagine Avatar: The Last Airbender in Live-Action
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Avatar: The Last Airbender was previously adapted in live-action with a feature film in 2010, and while the movie wasn’t very well-received, fans are hopeful that Netflix will learn from its mistakes to deliver something better with the upcoming series. One reason that fans are hopeful is that showrunner Albert Kim has promised that he will stay close to the source material rather than making many unnecessary changes.
“Netflix’s format meant we had an opportunity to reimagine a story that had originally been told in self-contained half-hour episodes as an ongoing serialized narrative. That meant story points and emotional arcs we’d loved in the original could be given even more room to breathe and grow,” Kim said of what will be different with this new show. “A live-action version would establish a new benchmark in representation and bring in a whole new generation of fans. This was a chance to showcase Asian and Indigenous characters as living, breathing people. Not just in a cartoon, but in a world that truly exists, very similar to the one we live in.”
He added, “I also knew what I didn’t want to do. I didn’t want to change things for the sake of change. I didn’t want to modernize the story, or twist it to fit current trends. Aang is not going to be a gritty antihero. Katara is not going to get curtain bangs.”
Along with Midthunder as Yue, other confirmed cast members include Gordon Cormier (Aang), Dallas Liu (Zuko), Daniel Dae Kim (Fire Lord Ozai), Ken Leung (Commander Zhao), Arden Cho (June), Momona Tamada (Ty Iee), Thalia Tran (Mai), Utkarsh Ambudkar (King Bumi), Danny Pudi (The Mechanist), and George Takai (Koh). It has also been reported that the original Cabbage Merchant voice actor, James Sie, will reprise his role for the live-action show.
A release date hasn’t yet been set for Netflix’s Avatar: The Last Airbender.
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