Actors on M. Night Shyamalan’s latest film The Last Airbender had nothing but praise for their time with the director.
Noah Ringer, who played Aang says “I thought that with all the physical stunts expected to play an airbender, I’d be completely wiped out. Just the opposite! I was able to take naps between takes and sometimes even while the camera was rolling! I practically slept through the entire film and I think that came out in my performance.”
Shyamalan himself said he would frequently nap during actual filming since his overall vision was so perfect, he didn’t need to actually watch the actors perform certain scenes. “I was as excited to see the premiere as anyone,” he admitted, “ because there were several scenes I never actually saw performed.”
“When we worked on Slumdog Millionaire,” Dev Patel remembered, “Danny Boyle would be grilling us on our characters, talking to us about motivation for particular scenes and we even had that tiring dance number during the credits. As an actor, that can be quite a strain.”
“But even with all the complex stunts and bending maneuvers,” he continued, “I never felt even the slightest bit of stress on the set. Does Prince Zuko have any motivation? We never talked about it. M. Night said he wanted my face to be a blank slate so the audience could project their own motivations.”
Apparently, when Nicola Peltz, who played Katara, tried to emote during a particular scene, Shyamalan halted filming and gave her a twenty minute lecture on how to act without showing any hint of interest in the character. The director of such emotionless films as The Happening and Lady in the Water would chastise her by saying “stop looking at me when I’m talking to you! Stop listening to what I’m saying! Look at the wall! Think about that stain on the wall! Don’t think about your lines or your relationship to other characters! The stain on the wall is all that is important! Stop looking at me!”
“It was an emotional moment,” Peltz admitted, “but once I internalized it, I was really able to let go of any sort of emotional attachment to the character. I would remind myself that it was just a paycheck and there was no reason to get so worked up.”
Shyamalan looks forward to the sequel to The Last Airbender where, he says, he hopes to help his actors give even less of a crap about the movie than they did about this one.
“Actors work so hard,” he said, “when they come to work for me, I want them to feel like it is a relaxing vacation and I want that relaxation to show on screen.”
