‘Avatar: The Last Airbender’ supervising stunt coordinator Jeffrey Aro teases Season 2 [Exclusive Video Interview]
Jeffrey Aro has worked on the stunt teams of several major films and television shows in his career – including “Yellowjackets,” “Lost in Space,” “War for the Planet of the Apes,” and more. But his role as supervising stunt coordinator on the Netflix series “Avatar: The Last Airbender” might have been the most complex and trickiest of his career. Discussions about the show started months ahead of production, and the series required Aro to not just train a cast of young actors in the ways of airbending and martial arts but also adhere to what fans of the property remember from the beloved anime series that ran on Nickelodeon in the mid-2000s.
“The first layer we wanted to ensure the cast understood was breathing. So much authentic movement can be found in the breath,” Aro tells Gold Derby in an exclusive video interview. “So we just defined four different qigong inner-energy breathing techniques. We wanted the bending not to feel like magic. We wanted to make it feel like it was internal energy. So each bending style had its own breath.”
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Based on the Nickelodeon series created by Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko and developed for Netflix by Albert Kim, “Avatar: The Last Airbender” is set in a world where humanity is split into four factions, all of which coincide with the natural elements of earth, water, air and fire. Certain members of society can even control their adopted elements through telekinesis – and those rare and powerful enough to manipulate all four elements are called Avatars. “The Last Airbender,” then, focuses on Aang (Gordon Cormier), the last surviving member of the Air Nomads whose nascent abilities as Avatar can help bring peace and unity to the world after years of strife. Cormier is one of several young actors who star in the show, alongside television veterans like Daniel Dae Kim.
“What’s amazing about working with young people is that they’re so enthusiastic,” Aro says of the young adult cast. “They are willing to do and capable of doing so many of their own action sequences. So we wanted to make sure we had a good dialogue with them, that they understood the limitations and could create a relationship with their stunt double. Our goal was to use the cast for as much of the show as possible. But where most of the risk lies is in the research and development process. So we used the stunt doubles to design the sequences, got the approvals we needed from producers, and then those stunt doubles would become coaches to give the actors a shorthand.”
Aro compares the process to the work that Jackie Chan and Jet Li would do with their stunt doubles on several Hong Kong action classics. “That relationship is so important,” he adds. “But then, when it was something that was a high-risk element – like being thrown through a wall or being fire-blasted across the floor – we would use the stunt double.”
“Avatar: The Last Airbender” was a hit for Netflix and was renewed for an additional two seasons (much like its animated precursor, which also ran for three seasons). Aro says he’s excited about where the show is headed, particularly with new characters coming onto the scene.
“There are so many strong female characters — like Toph [another young bender],” Aro says. “I’m also looking forward to leveling up with the cast because they are willing to put the time in as they’ve proven. There’s going to be so much more wirework… it’s only going to get bigger, and we’re really excited to do that.”
All episodes of “Avatar: The Last Airbender” are streaming on Netflix.
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