Exclusive: Irene Bedard has been cast as Yagoda in the live-action Avatar: The Last Airbender series!
She is an Indigenous Iñupiat, Yup'ik, & Cree actor best known as the legendary voice of the Disney Princess Pocahontas in her titular 1995 film and reprised in Ralph Breaks the Internet (2018), as part of a long career also ranging from the cult classic Smoke Signals (1998) to HBO’s Westworld.
The now 55-year-old Bedard plays Yagoda, a healing waterbending instructor in the Northern Water Tribe who shares a surprising connection with Sokka and Katara of the Southern Water Tribe from all the way across the world.
Yagoda showed up in one pretty quick scene in the original animated series, so it will be interesting to see if her live-action counterpart has an expanded role!
Filming of Season 1 has already wrapped, so she has already finished filming her scenes for Season 1.