Michaela Jill Murphy

Michaela Jill Murphy (born August 18, 1994), also known by her stage name Jessie Flower, is an American voice actress. She is best known for voicing Toph Beifong in Avatar: The Last Airbender and Chaca in Kronk's New Groove and The Emperor's New School.

Early life
Murphy was born in Southern Indiana and is of Irish descent. She became interested in acting at the age of four, and her mother, Evette, moved them to Los Angeles to begin her career, where she appeared in commercials for Barbie and Mitsubishi. She starred as an orphan in Oliver! when she was five.

Career
At the age of 7, Murphy began auditioning for voice over roles and parts, in which she provides automated dialogue replacement (ADR) and additional voices. Her first voice over role was in the Pixar animated film Finding Nemo, where she played one of the school fishes and baby turtles. Murphy played the role of Chaca in Kronk's New Groove. She would reprise the role later in the spin-off series The Emperor's New School. She later called it the "most fun" voice acting she has ever done.

In 2005, Murphy voiced Meng in an episode of the Nickelodeon animated series Avatar: The Last Airbender. Her performance for Meng convinced Bryan Konietzko and Michael Dante DiMartino, the co-creators of Avatar: The Last Airbender, to cast her for the role of Toph Beifong, because of the "energy" she brought to the role, thereby joining the main cast for its last two seasons. She later told The Tab that she continued voicing Toph until her first year in high school and called the role her favorite voice acting experience and said she felt "pretty connected" to Toph's character, although she was only eleven years old when she was cast. She would also describe the season 2 episode "The Library" as one of her favorite episodes in the series.

Murphy later admitted that she is rarely recognized in public, even when cosplaying as Toph at San Diego Comic Con without any recognizing her as the voice actor of Toph. She later appeared as a guest on the official companion podcast for the series, Avatar: Braving the Elements, hosted by Dante Basco and Janet Varney, where she would talk about Toph and what the character "meant to her," with Basco describing Murphy as a "dear friend" and praising Toph's character. In a 2023, Murphy said that while she would "love to come back and do stuff" for the franchise, she supported the vision of the show's creators, including possible recasting.

She would voice other characters in animated films and series after Avatar: The Last Airbender. This included the character Peggy in Random! Cartoons (2008-2009), the young version of Franny in the film Meet the Robinsons (2007), and other characters in the film Curious George (2006), along with Chaca in The Emperor's New School (2006) and The Emperor's New Groove 2: Kronk's New Groove (2005). In 2014, Murphy guest-starred in The Legend of Korra, voicing a young Suyin Beifong, the youngest daughter of Toph. It was later described as helping lay the groundwork of Suyin's "personality while also paying tribute to her original role."

Murphy became an assistant theater manager at Yale University in fall 2014, but didn't perform until the next year, joining the university's theater scene, working on a production of Mr. Burns, a Post-Electric Play and performing in the musical Hello Again, among other productions. She graduated from Yale University in 2017, where she majored in a dual B.A. in Theater and Film Studies with concentrations in Playwrighting and Screenwriting. Before that, she voiced the English dubbed voice of Eiko Carol in the World of Final Fantasy video game.

In 2021, Murphy provided the voice of Nasse in the English dub of Platinum End. The next year, she provided the voice of a minor character in the English dubbed version of Super Cub.

Personal life
Murphy resides in Los Angeles. Murphy is openly bisexual. In June 2021, she celebrated Pride Month in an Instagram post, writing, "Pride is forever...Be kind to those around you, love is love is love!...There have been many who don’t swing my way, on multiple gender fronts, and that’s okay!" Previously, she broke up with her boyfriend before she started going to Yale University, in 2014, when she changed her hair color "to purple from virgin brown."

In September 2020, she founded Bandit Basics, an e-commerce platform that sells merchandise inspired by Toph Beifong, and her culture.