Lagaʻaia “didn’t need nothing from me,” quips Cravalho, who offered her live-action counterpart early support
Credit: Getty(2)
NEED TO KNOW
- Auliʻi Cravalho, the voice actress behind the animated Moana movies, and Catherine Lagaʻaia, star of Disney’s live-action remake, speak to PEOPLE about the new movie
- The two actresses laughingly recall the “not glamorous” day they met on set
- Cravalho also sent Lagaʻaia an email saying, “I’m here if you need me. But also, this is entirely your own. This is your film”
Auliʻi Cravalho is passing the Moana torch — and knows it’s in great hands.
The voice behind the titular chieftess in the 2016 animated hit Moana and its 2024 sequel, Cravalho, 25, was thrilled to welcome live-action remake star Catherine Lagaʻaia into the Polynesian-inspired franchise’s ʻohana, or family. The new movie is in theaters as of July 10.
The day the two actresses got to connect in person during pre-production, however, was “one of the not glamorous days on set” for Lagaʻaia, recalls the Hawaii-born Cravalho to PEOPLE. “Yeah, it was truly one of the worst we could have met,” agrees Lagaʻaia, 19, who hails from Sydney, Australia.
Credit: Disney (2)
“I don’t know exactly what you were doing, but you were making a lot of funny faces,” Cravalho tells her, adding, “Sis was emoting!”
“It’s so embarrassing,” says Lagaʻaia sheepishly. “It’s the [filmmaking process] where they scan your face. So you have to be angry and you look around in circles. You do a big face, look around in circles.”
Hearing Cravalho’s voice on set, Lagaʻaia recalls, “that’s what I grew up on. That’s my Moana. So I was doing these weird emotions and then I heard a voice in the background. I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, someone’s playing the movie in the background.’ I stand up and you’re sitting right there. Of all days!”
Credit: Disney(2)
Cravalho and Lagaʻaia have plenty in common, as they were both launched into the movie biz by being cast as Disney’s wayfinding heroine. Both made feature film debuts opposite Dwayne Johnson, who reprises his voice role as demigod Maui in the new reimagining; Cravalho now serves as executive producer. (All three actors recorded a new Lin-Manuel Miranda composition, “Along the Way,” for the live-action movie’s credits.)
So before Cravalho met the new Moana on set, she wrote her an email: “In the very beginning I was like, ‘I’m here if you need me. But also, this is entirely your own. This is your film.’”
Ultimately, after getting to know Lagaʻaia, the voice actress had no worries. “To be able to stand next to Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson on a canoe and feel cool as a cucumber — Catherine walked in with that kind of energy,” recalls Cravalho. “So she didn’t need nothing from me.”
The advice that Lagaʻaia received overall, the young actress says, is that a live-action Moana is simply “going to be something different” than the animated version. “There’s no way to avoid that. There’s no way to make it exactly as it was — as much as we would love that because yeah, it was a perfect movie.”
She adds, “Embracing that and stepping into that with as much ambition and imagination as you can was kind of the best route for us making a live-action.”
Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE’s free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.
Disney’s new Moana, costarring Rena Owen, John Tui and Frankie Adams, is in theaters now.
Cravalho next leads the new Adult Swim series My Adventures with Green Lantern as the voice of Jessica Cruz.
Read the full article here