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The Last Airbender’s Miya Cech addresses controversy around playing blind character

She used a unique method to replicate Toph's eyesight

Oreoluwa Adeyoola
25th June 2026, 11:42
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The actress who plays Toph in Netflix’s live-action adaptation of Avatar: The Last Airbender, Miya Cech, has talked about playing a blind character as a sighted person.

After just over two years, we finally have the second season of Netflix’s The Last Airbender. For most fans, one of the most important parts of the series was finding the perfect cast. This carried over into season two, where a bunch of new characters were introduced, like the star earthbender Toph. Easily one of the most loved characters of the show, Toph’s casting was heavily debated, as a major detail of her story is her blindness.

So when Netflix announced that actress Miya Cech, who has no visual impairment, was cast in the role, there was a bit of controversy. Some fans expressed that they would have preferred an actual vision-impaired person to take the role. Mika has spoken openly about this dilemma, and shared the steps she took to portray Toph as accurately as possible.

“Learning how to portray a fully blind character was one of the biggest insecurities I had about this role,” she said in a Netflix BTS clip.

“I was so interested and a little nervous to know how that was going to be perceived as a sighted actor.”

via Netflix

To immerse herself in the world of Toph, Miya wore contacts that restricted her vision on set and worked with a blindness consultant.

“When I got here, we did six weeks of training with our stunt team. We learned a lot of martial arts. I personally received training from Joe Strechay, who was my incredible blindness consultant. He gave me a very good education on the blindness community and people with low vision. This helped me portray the character accurately on screen, because I am not blind or low vision and will never know what it is like.”

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Featured image via Netflix