Nearly eight years since The Legend of Korra ended, the Avatarverse and its devoted fans are no less excited about benders and their daily battles. Initially, Korra was meant to be a short, spinoff miniseries from the legendarily acclaimed Avatar: The Last Airbender. However, the animated series ended up carving its own mythic path and aired for 52 episodes on Nickelodeon. Due to the success of both animated series, Avatar Studios was born in February, with the aim to create new film and television content from both Avatar and Korra's worlds.

After years of working on Avatar and Korra, actors Dante Basco (who voiced Prince Zuko) and Janet Varney (who voiced Korra) decided to host a rewatch podcast for fans of both series. From Nickelodeon and co-produced by iHeartRadio, Avatar: Braving the Elements will break down episodes from both Avatar and Korra and feature special guest stars from the shows' cast and crew, who offer the kind of insight that can only be gleaned from spending years with the material. In an interview with CBR, Basco and Varney discussed the challenges of recapping hit shows, why the Avatarverse audience is intergenerational and what they hope this podcast will give their fans.

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CBR: My first question is for you, Dante. What do you hope audiences will take away from this podcast or learn about the Avatarverse?

Dante Basco: Well, I think as we go through it, we were watching the episodes, me and Varney together, and I hope it's like, for a lot of fans, it's a companion to certain episodes. We really do a deep dive into each episode. So I think fans will get kind of a more intimate look at it and take the journey with me and Varney as the voice actors who voice some of these great characters in this Avatarverse, but really sharing our memories of it and then also uncovering new things about it that may or may have not been known. It's just a good time also, looking at these episodes. For me, it's just great to relive all of it. And then one of my personal goals, and I think Varney's in this ship with me, is to really become a connoisseur of the world. Maybe not a genius in the world, but just to be at the table to talk about it with everybody in a really satisfying way.

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Iroh putting his hand on Zuko's shoulder in Avatar: The Last Airbender.

And a similar question for you, Janet. What's one thing that you hope audiences will take away from this or even the making of Korra as a character?

Janet Varney: Well, I'll tell you, we are so immersed in Avatar: The Last Airbender right now. I keep having to be reminded that I had anything to do with any part of this universe. I am deep into my nerddom and my love for Book One. We are in Book One, I could stay there forever. I feel like I've watched every episode of Book One like six times now. I'll read something or think of something, and then I'm like, "Oh, I wanted to mention this one thing!" And then I'll just end up starting the episode and watching it front to back anyway. So I have been living in this for almost a year? I've been that in that headspace. I'm going to be in shock when we get to Book Two, to be honest with you, just to get to Book Two, I'm going to be like, "Oh, yeah. Book Two!" Because so much happens in Book One. It's extraordinary what this show accomplishes in just one season of television. It is wild.

Even if you've seen the show a million times, I do feel like this is a podcast that, as Dante was saying, we have a ton of fun talking about it. We love giving each other a hard time. We are very, very ready to acknowledge when we are totally dumb about something and we have to be schooled by one person or another, which is often. And then, like Dante was saying, we have some wonderful guests, people who were part of what makes the show so amazing. We do have the benefit of getting some of that inside information. It's just been so much fun.

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Korra fighting someone in The Legend of Korra

So, starting with you, Dante. Avatar and The Legend of Korra tackle so many heavy themes, which is something, in your first podcast episode, that both of you discuss. Both series tackle themes like class oppression, racism, tribalism, genocide -- all these really hard things -- but, at the same time, it's such a hopeful show. While you were recapping these shows, how were you surprised by that? Revisiting and realizing these hard things are talked about all the time?

Basco: Yeah, I'm so surprised by the whole thing. In reality, even though I did the show, and I lived the character's story through performing it and reading scripts weekly, I didn't go back and watch the show from beginning to end and see it as the audience. I'm an actor. I lived in the doing this, in the telling of the story was how I experienced the story. So, I'm experiencing the story now, for the first time, in this way. It's very surprising. It blows my mind every episode I watch. Of course, I think of myself then, the memories of doing that episode and where was I my life, in this time? But then, you think, "Where was the world at that time? Where's the world now? Who's watching this? This is for kids? Kids are watching this?"

I always tell Janet, we're talking about all these major issues in the world that are still going on today -- let alone back then. You're maybe an 11-year-old kid who just got back from school, watching Nickelodeon, drinking a Capri-Sun and eating a fruit roll-up and watching genocide? And... Things going on, like, "Wow, can you believe that Mike and Brian and Nickelodeon pulled all this off?" We don't know the repercussions of these kinds of things that get planted in our minds as kids as we're trying to balance the world. And these really beautiful themes come a very kind formative time in life. It blows my mind, literally.

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Aang Zuko Southern Raiders

And a similar question for you, Janet. What's one thing about revisiting these shows' hopeful message for these hard, darker themes that surprised you?

Varney: Well, I would be remiss -- and I know Dante and I have both talked about this, and he kind of touched on this -- getting a chance to start this process of revisiting it, which, by the way, I would have done with or without a podcast on the way. We've been working on this for kind of a while. But what happened over the last year, everybody being in quarantine, and the fact that The Last Airbender became available to a broader audience through Netflix, and the same happened with Korra during the quarantine. It just felt like, "This is so right for right now." And the fact that they were both made independent of one another, years apart, and both made years ago, just speaks to how universal and how timeless -- for better or for worse with some of the tough stuff -- these themes remain.

One of the things that came up for me, Dante, when you were talking about those kids [watching Avatar or Korra] and thinking when they were first watching [these series], and as they were popping their fruit roll-ups, I thought, "Oh, we have met so many of those kids who are adults now at the cons. And they are so just emotionally present. And they are compassionate people. And they are artistic people." And I understand that it may be a chicken or the egg thing -- where perhaps they would have been that way, no matter what, whether they had Avatar or not -- but they are the first to say that they feel like a lot of what shaped some big stuff for them came out of that show. So we have this amazing gift. We've met people who are naming their children after Avatar: The Last Airbender characters; yet, I'm also getting tweets from a mom who's like, "My five-year-old just discovered Avatar. He's obsessed with Appa!" And it just feels like, "Oh, that cycle is starting all over again now." And that, to me, gives me chills, you know? That's what great entertainment should do.

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1 old zuko and korra

And my last question is for you, Dante. As someone who among, several things, is also a feature film director, what's one thing about this podcast that you hope audiences will learn about directing an animated TV show?

Basco: I directed my first film recently -- Fabulous Filipino Brothers -- and that's live-action.

I don't know! What will fans get from directing? Ultimately, my approach to it is similar to what Janet's is. It's a communicative art. When you're filmmaking, there's no one that can make it by themselves. I think we talk a lot about the process, me and Janet being voice actors -- being just one piece of the soup that is Avatar. We are the voice actors. And these are really great characters, and we perform them; but, even in the performance of the characters, we share that performance with the animators. We share that performance with the writers. We talked to the other voice actors. We talk to creators. We're gonna be able to talk to some of the other people that help put the whole soup together, and talk about their parts of what that has been with other directors and the writers and various other components of the show.

So as a director, you're listening to the podcast, you get to really understand that the different facets it takes to create something like Avatar or a movie or a television show, it's not you by yourself. It's about an artist village, a community of artists coming together to hopefully do something great, or at least given the chance to be great.

Avatar: Braving the Elements is distributed by the iHeartPodcast Network and stars Dante Basco and Janet Varney. The podcast debuts on Jun. 22.

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