In the most recent episode of a newly launched Avatar: The Last Airbender rewatch podcast, Jack de Sena looks back on his experience voicing the character Sokka with his castmates. De Sena played the teenaged Water Tribe warrior throughout the series' run from 2005 to 2008 alongside Mae Whitman as his water-bending sister Katara and Zach Tyler as Aang, the Avatar and last remaining Airbender in the four nations. The Nickelodeon animated series gained a wide fandom and critical approval and later spawned the spinoff series The Legend of Korra in 2012.

Every Avatar episode begins with the same narration, which introduces viewers to a world divided into four element-based nations where people can magically manipulate nature. Where once the Water Tribes, Earth Kingdom, Air Nomads, and Fire Nation "lived in harmony," the warlike Fire Nation has since seized power over its counterparts. A century before the show begins, the Air Nomads were decimated in a genocide that left none remaining but Aang, who has been preserved in an iceberg unbeknownst to the rest of the world. The show begins when Sokka and Katara find and release Aang. Aang later reveals to the siblings that he is the legendary Avatar who has the potential to "bend" all four elements. Sokka, an impulsive and sarcastic teenage warrior, and Katara, an old soul with waterbending powers, join Aang on his quest to master the elements while protecting him from the Fire Nation's power-hungry interest.

Related: How Old Aang, Katara & Sokka Originally Were In Avatar (& Why It Changed)

Jack de Sena talks about what it was like to get cast on Avatar as a child actor on an episode of the podcast Avatar: Braving the Elements with hosts Janet Varney (Korra) and Dante Basco (Zuko). Varney and Basco discuss each episode of the series on the official companion podcast, which launched in June. While reminiscing with his castmates, De Sena readily admits that he was frequently late for his call times, an "unprofessional" misstep that the actor now recalls with equal parts regret and humor. Although the then-teenaged actor takes full accountability for his chronic lateness, he has a pretty understandable excuse: he was starting college at UCLA when Avatar was recording and had to figure out how to manage two unfamiliar, conflicting commitments at once. Read what de Sena said below:

By the time we were doing the second season, I was at college. I was at UCLA, so I was living on my own, off at school, having to commute to Burbank, all by myself! I was frequently late, and it's a deep retroactive source of shame...What an unprofessional 18-year-old I was! They had to make up times. They had to tell me fake times as to when the records were.

Sokka and Hawky in Avatar The Last Airbender

In fairness, "unprofessional" and "18-year-old" are virtually synonymous terms, and attending college full-time isn't exactly compatible with voicing a series lead on a network television show. Despite his arguments otherwise, de Sena was as much a professional as any of his coworkers. Prior to getting cast on Avatar, he'd already been working as a child actor, most notably as an ensemble member on the seminal children's sketch show, All That. Still, he couldn't have foreseen Avatar's success and resulting demands when he recorded the pilot before matriculating. Basco defends his castmate and counters that he wasn't "that late," but he concedes that de Sena was often running behind schedule.

Lateness notwithstanding, the Avatar cast and crew clearly figured out a way to get the job done. Avatar: The Last Airbender is considered one of the best animated series of all time, thanks in no small part to de Sena's hilarious voice acting. De Sena has continued to work as an actor and voiceover artist with starring roles on Hulu's Battleground, Nickelodeon's 100 Things to Do Before High School, and Netflix's The Dragon Prince, so he can't have ticked off that many producers.

Next: How Powerful Is The Avatar? Aang & Korra Compared

Source: Avatar: Braving the Elements