Zach Tyler Eisen on 20 Years of The Ant Bully, Voicing Aang on Avatar: The Last Airbender

In July 2006, Warner Bros. Pictures released a micro-sized animated comedy that has dwelt in the shadows of cinematic obscurity these last two decades.

The Ant Bully may not be well-known, but there's no denying the worldwide recognition of its ensemble voice cast: Nicolas Cage, Julia Roberts, Regina King, Bruce Campbell, Paul Giamatti, Meryl Streep, Ricardo Montalban and Lily Tomlin.

That is the definition of stacked.

At the center of all that star power was Zach Tyler Eisen, who famously voiced Aang in Nickelodeon's Avatar: The Last Airbender. By the time '06 rolled around, he had enough episodes under his belt and felt ready to make the jump from TV to the big screen.

Celebrating 20 Years of The Ant Bully With Cast Member Zach Tyler Eisen

"Being the main character on the series and figuring out how each [recording] session was going to go certainly prepared me for leading a film," Eisen exclusively recalled to SYFY Wire over a recent Zoom call. "I was still relatively inexperienced for a 10-to-12-year-old actor, so all of that practice made it a lot easier and feel more natural."

Produced by Tom Hanks and Gary Goetzman's Playtone banner, The Ant Bully was adapted by writer-director John A. Davis (creator of Jimmy Neutron) from John Nickle's 1999 children's book of the same name. The studio mindset at the time was to try and replicate the success of Shrek: Choose a kid's book and "just go crazy with it," Eisen explained. "[They took] this very short, simple and very sweet picture book and expanded upon it, made it a movie rendered in 3D."

The big screen translation follows the general narrative beats of its source material, telling the story of a young boy named Lucas Nickle (voiced by Eisen), who is magically shrunken down by ant sorcerer Zoc (Cage) to the size of an ant after repeatedly torturing the colony in his front yard. Needless to say, the character learns his lesson and returns to normal stature with a greater appreciation for the tiny critters living beneath his feet, not to mention the self-confidence to stand up to his own bullies.

"It's an entirely different take on the insect story, if you will," said Eisen, referring to Ant Bully forebears A Bug's Life and Antz. "I think that in people's memories, it's had some trouble differentiating. I get asked a lot, ‘Oh, you were in A Bug's Life?’ I’m like, ‘No, it wasn't A Bugs Life.’ They're like, ‘Oh, right, it was the Woody Allen one.’ I'm like, 'No, it wasn't the Woody Allen one [either].'"

Nevertheless, being able to work with the above-mentioned A-listers proved to be an unforgettable experience for the actor, now 32. "I remember getting into a conversation about the Ramones with Nicolas Cage," Eisen recounted. "It was just funny, being an 11-year-old talking to this very serious actor about a band that's well before my time, but we were able to connect over something outside of the work."

The Ant Bully arrived in theaters on July 28, 2006 to mixed reviews, but barely recouped its $50 million budget with a global box office haul of $55 million. That financial disappointment effectively killed DNA Productions, the banner Davis founded with Keith Alcorn (the company's mascot was the three-eyed, "Hi, I'm Paul!" chimpanzee).

"I think it kind of got overshadowed that summer," mused Eisen. "It was the same summer as Cars, and that movie was a phenomenon. I do genuinely think [Ant Bully is] underrated."

How so?

"The film did a good job of speaking to kids in a way that didn't baby them," he continued. "It had something for adults as well. I think there were just some box office circumstances. There aren't really second chances in this business, but if there were, I think it could do well again. I do believe in my heart that it is an underrated picture, especially with all the star power."

(l): Zach Tyler Eisen during Warner Bros. Pictures' Premiere of The Ant Bully at Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood, CA, United States. (r): Zach Tyler Eisen speaks onstage at Nickelodeon's Avatar: The Last Airbender panel during 2024 Los Angeles Comic-Con at Los Angeles Convention Center on October 05, 2024 in Los Angeles, California.

Photo: Courtesy of E. Charbonneau/WireImage & Angela Papuga/FilmMagic

While Eisen was never aware of any sequel talk—"We could we could be living in The Ant Bully Cinematic Universe," he joked—there is always a chance of Hollywood going back to the well for a reboot or legacy follow-up.

"He certainly befriends the ants, so there is opportunity for him to go back to that world," said Eisen when asked about where the story could go in a potential sequel. "The movie ends with him saving the colony from extermination, and then he’s back in the human world, giving them jelly beans and whatnot. That leaves the door open for him to of go back as he wishes. Maybe he teams up with Zoc and they create a potion that lets people go freely from the human world to the ant world—and things go awry."

Original Voice of Aang Looks Back on Nickelodeon's Avatar: The Last Airbender

While The Ant Bully fell into obscurity, Avatar: The Last Airbender moved in the opposite direction, only growing in size (no pun intended) and popularity.

"So much of it has come with hindsight," admitted Eisen. "I think that doing it as a young kid, it was hard to have any perspective on it...I wasn't able to fully understand how cool it was and the impact that it's had until all these years later."

Eisen realized just how impactful the original series had become once it began doing massive streaming numbers during the pandemic lockdown. "Bringing, at that point, a 15-year-old show back into the limelight was really incredible," he reflected. "It brought me back into the world a little bit, and I've been able to have a deeper appreciation for it."

He credited the show's success to the fact that, like Ant Bully, the creators "took the audience seriously" and "confronts issues of war and genocide head-on," the actor said. "It's very forward-thinking. It had representation of disabled characters and indigenous characters. These were things that weren't really being shown in cartoons. It was one of the first serialized stories Nickelodeon aired...I think it's easier to connect to a serialized story that goes really deep and develops characters well."

The franchise continued on after the original three seasons via comics, prose novels, the infamous M. Night Shyamalan movie and a sequel series, The Legend of Korra, which showed Aang as a fully-grown man (voiced by D. B. Sweeney). Like Mark Hamill's disillusioned Luke Skywalker in Star Wars: The Last Jedi, this later-life version of the character proved to be polarizing among the fans.

"As a kid in the original series, Aang could do no wrong," Eisen said. "He was he was a great role model, and then you see where things kind of go awry for him in Korra. I think a lot of people didn't like that. They didn't want to have to compromise on their vision of Aang and who he was. But I very much disagree with that take."

"I think it was very real," he elaborated. "Aang saves the world as a kid and then has to build a new world, a new city and repopulate his people. Things are going to get left behind, and he can’t satisfy everybody. I appreciated that he was treated like a real human being. I don't think it would have been fair to him or the audience if he had just been this perfect figure."

He's kept up with the franchise, which now includes a live-action Netflix adaptation (season two debuted last month), the animated film Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender (now streaming on Paramount+) and a third animated show Avatar: Seven Havens (hitting Paramount+ in early October).

"I got emotional watching it," Eisen said of his experience watching the Netflix interpretation. "Just seeing it come to life in that way was very cool and brought me back to a time and a place...We’re so happy to be able to pass the torch to people that really care about the show and want to do it justice."

(L to R): Kiawentiio Tarbell as Katara, Gordan Cormier as Aang, Ian Ousley as Sokka, Maria Zhang as Suki in season 2 of Avatar: The Last Airbender.

Photo: Courtesy of Katie Yu/Netflix © 2025

Once The Last Airbender concluded in 2008, Eisen walked away from the world of entertainment to attend high school and college. He now works as a director of photography on the East Coast, but has considered a return to his voice acting roots following several years on the convention circuit with his old costars.

"I think would be really fun," he concluded. "I know it would take a lot a lot of hard work. It's not the same doing it as a child as it is as an adult. But I hope that maybe there's still a toe in the door. Maybe not an entire foot, but I think I've got a decent résumé. Maybe the dust will get brushed off one of these days."