The ‘Avatar: The Last Airbender’ Cast Shared Their Secret To The Best On-Set Naps In TV History

Netflix had their work cut out for them with Avatar: The Last Airbender. That’s the case for a few reasons, including how the Nickelodeon animated series holds a special place in viewers’ hearts, and the M. Night Shyamalan movie, well, does not. So ideally, the Netflix version will edge closer to the former rather than the latter, and we won’t have to wait too long before finding out how viewers respond to the new series following the Feb. 22 release date. At that point, young Air Nomad (Aang) will have to ascend to his rightful place and restore peace between realms, even though Fire Nation is eternally salty and throwing up every obstacle possible.

Aside from adaptation-based faithfulness to the source material, however, there’s another important issue that the cast of this series had to sort out, and that was the matter of on-set naps. They happen! And as the leading trio has revealed, Aang’s enormous flying bison (Appa) made an ideal giant pillow, where Gordon Cormier, Kiawentiio Tarbell, and Ian Ousley caught some shuteye for hours at a time. Cormier dished the important details via Variety:

“They told us that we have to wait up there [on Appa] for 15 minutes and that we could come down, but it’d be kind of useless. So we stay up there; 30 minutes go by, and nothing is happening. We eventually started napping and forming this crazy puzzle shape to stay in the saddle, and we started kicking and shoving one another. We were all getting really mad at each other. It was a great memory because now I can look back at it and think about how pissed off we were because we were all trying to sleep. It took like an hour but was a good bonding experience.”

Nap City is a glorious place to visit, and these actors made the most of the opportunity, so good on them. If you want to take a peek at Appa, check out the 1:00 mark in this trailer.