ELKO — Michaela Jill Murphy — an actress best known for voicing rough-and-tumble adventurer Toph Beifong in the 2000s Nickelodeon animated series "Avatar: The Last Airbender" — spoke at the recent 2024 Elko Pop Con, where she shared stories of her experiences in the entertainment world. Murphy said recording lines for Toph was a Tuesday afternoon memory for her when she was 12 and 13 years old. “Sometimes it was every Tuesday, sometimes it was every other Tuesday.
So in my head it was like, oh, it’s Tuesday. I have to leave early to go record "Avatar," at, like, 3:30 in the afternoon.” She said the studio was in Burbank, California, "and there was a big old metal gate, and you had to push the button, and tell the front desk who you were.
” "I just remember hearing ‘beep’ and opening a big door. She said there was a kitchen near the studio and "sometimes they had fresh popcorn." “So I have all these little sensory memories.
The actual recording, it was often just me, because scheduling is tricky,” she said. “Sometimes [Mae Whitman] Katara or [Jack De Sena] Sokka would be there. Occasionally [Dante Basco] Zuko or [Grey DeLisle] Azula, just depending on scheduling.
They tried to have multiples so at least one person was with an actor to record.” Still, she added, “There wasn't a whole group of us recording at one time until the last episode.” As Zach Tyler Eisen, the voice actor for Aang, lived in New York, the rest of the cast did not meet him until.