Complex magazine recently questioned Ian Ousley about the behind-the-scenes photos with his ‘Avatar: The Last Airbender’ co-stars. The pictures hinted at a close relationship between the actors.
The outlet asked the Sokka actor if their off-set relationship was the same. It turns out things were not well between him and Dallas Liu for a while:
“I mean, hopefully, Dallas and I didn’t seem like actual homies in the show, but we were roommates. We actually knew each other in L.A. beforehand, when we were like 15. It’s a very long story, but we really were not fans of each other at all. So, when I found out he got cast, I was like, ‘Oh my God, this is gonna suck. My life is going to suck for a year.’”
They Formed A Friendship In Time
Dallas Liu played Zuko opposite Ian Ousley’s Sokka in Netflix’s live-action version of the 2005 cartoon. The filming schedule forced them to spend a lot of time together. The actor shared:
“We were supposed to be friends, and then we just bonded throughout the bootcamp and the first month of shooting. We lived a block away from each other, and we would always get dropped off at one person’s house, go eat, come back to that person’s house, and then seven hours before we had to be on set for the next bootcamp day, which is very intense because it’s like eight hours of training, we’d be like, ‘Oh, crap, I’ve got to go home.’ Go sleep in separate places, and then do it all again the next day.”
He added:
“So, after the Christmas break, we were just like, ‘Dude, we’ve got to move in together.’ So we ended up doing that, which was really cool.”
The Avatar Team Has A Group Chat
Gordon Cormier and Kiawentiio also appeared in the series as Aang and Katara. Elizabeth Yu portrayed Princess Azula.
The cast came together in 2021 and wrapped up filming in British Columbia by summer 2022. Ousley confirmed that they created a group chat to stay in touch after that.
Complex asked if their group chat had a name similar to the ‘Oppenheimer’ cast’s ‘OppenHomies.’ The actor replied:
“We have one, it’s ‘Shadow Wizard Money Gang.’ I think there’s a music producer who has that as his producing tag that was big for a while. One day I opened my text and it said ‘Shadow Wizard Money Gang’ with like a ton of emojis. And I was like, ‘What the hell?’ And it was them. I was like, ‘Oh, cool.’”
Netflix recently renewed ‘Avatar: The Last Airbender’ for a second and third season. The full cast is expected to return in the new episodes.
