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Catherine Lagaʻaia, the 19-year-old star of Disney’s new live-action remake of Moana, talks to PEOPLE about her feature film debut
Her “normal, run-of-the-mill teenage years” in Sydney, Australia, resembled Moana’s isolated island village, she says
“All you want” as one of eight siblings, says Lagaʻaia, “is your own thing”
For live-action Moana star Catherine Lagaʻaia, the journey toward her feature film debut couldn’t help but resemble her character’s.
“I lived in this very little bubble in Australia,” the Sydney-born actress, 19, tells PEOPLE ahead of the new movie’s July 10 release.
“It’s so hard to get there and then once you’re there, it’s so hard to leave again,” says Lagaʻaia, “because we’re just so far away from everything.”
Catherine Laga’aia in ‘Moana’
Credit: Courtesy of Disney
As she notes, the same is true for Moana herself. Lagaʻaia was cast out of thousands to play, in her first major film role, the flesh-and-blood version of the chieftess-to-be first voiced by actress Auliʻi Cravalho. The Thomas Kail-directed remake costars none other than Dwayne Johnson, reprising his role as the demigod Maui from Disney’s 2016 hit animated musical.
Growing up in Australia with her actor father and educator mother “felt like I was living in my own little Motunui with the things I recognized and the people I knew,” quips Lagaʻaia, calling her childhood “the most normal, run-of-the-mill teenage years ever.” Motunui (as depicted first in computer-generated animation and now filmed on Oahu, Hawaii) is the bustling but isolated island village where Moana and her tribe live.
“Leaping into something new and having to go further than I’d ever been and try things I’ve never done, I feel like I took a lot of Moana’s bravery,” Lagaʻaia says. “Because she just kind of radiates that.”
Catherine Laga’aia
Credit: Ramona Rosales/Disney
There were other ways Lagaʻaia’s childhood resembled Moana’s. “I’m one of eight; I have seven other siblings,” the actress explains. “So even my little house felt like a little Motunui, we had so many people always running around.”
She adds, “All you want when you’re in a group of siblings that large is your own thing. You want to be the best in something, you want something to be yours because everything is so shared.”
Jay Laga’aia and Catherine Laga’aia in April 2026
Credit: Don Arnold/WireImage
Now, not long after graduating from Sydney’s Newtown High School of the Performing Arts, an iconic Disney heroine belongs to Lagaʻaia. “When I found acting and when I found Moana, when I got that, I was like, ‘Okay, I’ve got my thing now. This is something that differentiates me from you [siblings], but also something that helps me relate to and connect to you guys in a different kind of way.’”
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In launching her movie career, Lagaʻaia is also following in her father Jay’s footsteps. The actor of Samoan descent, who has worked steadily in New Zealand and Australian screen projects, played Captain Tycho Celchu in Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones and Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith.
“I think having my dad in the industry, as well as wanting to do the OG proud, and wanting to do the people who love the movies proud, I feel my biggest thing was I wanted him to be proud,” says the actress. “I need him to be, at the end of the day, proud of the legacy that I’m extending for him.”
Moana, featuring the music of composer Lin-Manuel Miranda and costarring Rena Owen, John Tui and Frankie Adams, is in theaters Friday.
Read the original article on People