Long before she was cast, growing up in Australia, Catherine Laga'aia explained herself to people through Moana.
“You could say, ‘I’m from Samoa. You don’t know where that is? Think Motunui. Think Moana,’” she tells The National.
But the 2016 film offered more than a familiar picture of the world that had shaped her. For Laga'aia and many other Pacific Island girls, Moana was the first Disney heroine who made them feel directly represented on a global stage, and helped them feel understood in other cultures.
“It was something we could reference when people thought of us,” Laga'aia says. “‘You look like Moana. You sound like Moana. Your dad looks like Moana’s dad.’”
Earlier generations had no equivalent point of reference, she says. Laga'aia was, proudly, part of the first generation to grow up with that model and, a decade later, step into the role herself.
The 19-year-old Sydney-born actress, whose family immigrated from the Pacific island, makes her feature-film debut in Disney’s live-action remake, directed by Thomas Kail, after being chosen from among 32,000 applicants. The film opened in cinemas on Thursday, with Auli'i Cravalho, who voiced Moana in the animated films, serving as an executive producer.
Production took place in Atlanta and Hawaii, including location work on Oahu. Laga'aia began her first film journey focused on scenes set in Moana’s village, establishing the family, routines and responsibilities she would leave when she crossed the reef.
“The key was establishing what Moana was missing and what Moana was leaving,” Laga'aia says. “We spent our first two weeks in this beautiful village, seeing Moana’s day-to-day routine and what she would be doing had she never gone out on the ocean.
“When we leave and it’s just Moana by herself, you can see what she’s missing and what’s no longer there. It gives her something to fight for and keeps pushing her forward.”
The scenes also showed the future that remained open to Moana at home. She was expected to lead Motunui as its next chief, although she began her journey still uncertain whether she was ready to take her father’s place. Memories of her parents and village would later follow her out on the ocean.
Kail says the production worked through several versions of how its animated characters would appear in live action. The point at which Laga'aia and Dwayne Johnson, returning as the demigod Maui, stood together in front of the camera brought that process to an end.
“Watching these two step in front of the camera for the first time and seeing them, we realised, ‘I think we’ve arrived,’” he says.
The music presented Laga'aia with another part of the character she had inherited. Songs including How Far I’ll Go remain closely associated with Cravalho, who was 14 when she voiced Moana in the original film.
Kail and Lin-Manuel Miranda considered adding new music to the remake, but felt the story’s existing musical moments were already complete. The end credits gave them room to bring Laga'aia, Cravalho and Johnson together in a new song, Along the Way, with the two actresses representing different generations of Moana and Maui connecting the animated and live-action films.
“Getting to have something completely new that I could plant my flag on, that I could be part of as my version of Moana, was really cool,” Laga'aia says.
Miranda recorded the demo with his Hamilton co-stars Phillipa Soo and Jasmine Cephas Jones, with Soo singing the section that would eventually become Laga'aia’s. The finished recording allowed the newcomer to introduce something of her own while performing beside the actress whose voice she had grown up hearing.
“It felt like we were a cohesive team,” Laga'aia says. “It wasn’t 2016 and then live action. We’re one crew in the Moana legacy.”
Moana is in cinemas now across the Middle East
