So remember my trip to Los Angeles earlier this year for the Pete’s Dragon movie?!
Well one other exciting tidbit was that we got to do an exclusive interview with Auli’i Cravalho — the star of Disney’s Moana!!
First of all, she is an impressive teenager 😉 You can see that she has been well educated and acting was not her first study. She was chosen for this role due to her heritage and her incredible voice. Not to mention the fact that she is just a gorgeous young lady!
Her and her mother were a total pleasure to interview. And funny 🙂 Classic and HUMBLE mom and daughter. Her mom took every opportunity to embarrass her too! Including, when asked about meeting The Rock (her co-star), Puanani (mom) had us all rolling with laughter with her comment that she had done Rock Climbing for all of us.
We were able to chat a bit about the role, how she came into it, etc.
Pete’s Dragon was actually the first time that she had been on the red carpet, she did all of the voicing in Hawaii so coming to LA was a new experience for her.
“That was my first red carpet. I’ve heard it’s going to be with music and dancers. So it was really interesting to see how it all worked and how people know my name and they were saying it correctly too, ‘Auli’i’. They had a hard time, but they were all saying it in synch to get me to turn to them. It was good.”
We also talked about how she had to keep her role a secret for a LONG time! It was a big secret that only her and her mom could share for three months…. Her mom was the first person that she was able to tell and we asked who the next was that she wanted to share the news with:
‘Auli’i: Well, that was happening during summer school, so I had taken a break like a two hour break from something I was going to like a dentist appointment or something and I went back to school and I remember I had a strawberry smoothie before that and so they went, didn’t you go to a dentist appointment, and I was like did I say dentist I meant doctor. So I wanted to tell all my friends, but I didn’t tell anyone.
Puanani: No you couldn’t. We were sworn to secrecy. We were sworn July August, September, October yeah like a little over three months. So she’d come home at night and- and we’d be, you know, hugging and she’s like ‘Mommy, I’m Moana.’ I’m like ‘yeah you sure are, sweetie’ you know, there’s no one else to tell. Oh I’m going to cry. But it’s so true.’
The relationship between Auli’l and her mom was truly beautiful. You could see the pride that both had in their heritage and I really look forward to seeing the full movie later this month!! Releases Thanksgiving day! Go see it!
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