Posted 6 minutes agoSubscribe to Screen Time NewsletterCaret Down"Avatar: The Last Airbender" Turns 20: Jack De Sena On The Laughs, The Heart, And The Legacy Of SokkaFrom cactus juice to moon spirits, Jack De Sena reflects on bringing the humor and heart to Sokka.by Andrew FirrioloBuzzFeed StaffFacebookPinterestLink It's safe to say that Avatar: The Last Airbender wouldn't have been the same without Sokka. Nickelodeon Animation Studios Celebrating 20 years of Avatar, we're interviewing the cast and crew who brought our favorite characters to life. Moments before the NYCC cast panel, I had the opportunity to sit down with Sokka's voice actor, Jack De Sena. I always appreciated Sokka's humor, charisma, and the depth of his character.
It was a treat to chat with Jack about Sokka's greatest quotes, his character arc, emotional moments (still sobbing over Yue!), and what the world of Avatar means to him, 20 years later. Nickelodeon / Via Tiffany Chao The world of Avatar came to life at NYCC, October 2025. Jack had no idea about the scope of Avatar when he auditioned. Nickelodeon Animation Studios Jack: If I remember correctly, I think it was a very typical audition process where I just got the sides and sent in a tape. At that point, I only started doing voice-over a year or two earlier. My then voiceover agent, Melissa Berger Brennan, had a little booth in Century City, and I would just go and record auditions there. When you read for something like that, you have no idea - you don't know the scope of what it's gonna be. You're in the flow of reading sides, sending in tapes, and auditioning for this and that. There were a few rounds of callbacks, and, if memory serves, I feel like they locked in Mae Whitman [voice of Katara] and me fairly early on. They were using us for a little while to read with the "Aangs." That was a very cool part of the process, getting extra time to feel out the characters. It's hard to believe it's been 20 years! From the start, Jack focused on bringing the humor to Sokka's character. Nickelodeon Animation Studios Jack: The thing that stood out to me in the pilot script was seeing this stubborn, put-upon, frustrated older brother. He's this guy in a magical world, who isn't magical, and he has this feeling of resentment. I immediately focused on pulling the humor out of that. If he's gonna be frustrated and vaguely curmudgeonly the whole time, how can we get laughs out of that? How can we add some goofiness to that?A part of Sokka's character that I was drawn to immediately was this feeling of leadership and how that affects him. His dad's gone. He's in this small village, and he takes it upon himself to be this warrior. I found that very interesting right away - that small-town feel, knowing we're about to embark on this huge adventure across the world. Nickelodeon Animation Studios Sokka thinks he knows how the world works, but they start adventuring out, and he meets the Kyoshi warriors. It shifts his entire perspective on women and what true strength means. I think all of that was important to build in the pilot, to have this small-minded genius, in a way. He's a very smart character right from the beginning, but he's got a small perspective. (Laughs) I don't know if I was thinking all that when we made the pilot. I was probably just thinking, like, "Where can I make the jokes?" Why "Sokka's Master" stands out to Jack: Nickelodeon Animation Studios Jack: A beautiful thing about the writing of the show is that every character got an arc and was explored quite thoroughly. That felt like such a gift as an actor, to be cracking open these scripts and seeing a whole new dimension of this character. "Sokka's Master" in Season 3 is one of my favorite episodes. It explores that feeling of being "less than" which he's been harboring since the beginning. This feeling of, "Okay, I'm surrounded by all these incredibly gifted, magical people. Where do I fit in? What do I bring?" Nickelodeon Animation Studios Early in the series, we're mining that feeling and frustration for humor. Then it switches to, "How has that been affecting him? What weight has that placed upon him? Where is his self-esteem at right now?" We get those beautiful scenes where he's off having these deep moments of self-doubt - while everyone who loves Sokka is back at camp saying all these wonderful things about him.I think it's really a testament to the writing that we got such textured versions of these characters. One moment can be used for laughs, and later can be really unpacked and explored. At first, Jack found Sokka's emotional scenes intimidating. Nickelodeon Animation Studios Jack: I come largely from a comedic background. Sokka was so comedy-forward, so the first couple of times I had bigger emotional moments in the series were very intimidating to me. One example is everything with Princess Yue in the Season One finale - that was definitely a little out of my comfort zone. Having [voice director] Andrea Romano was