Catherine Laga’aia knows that her life may well change forever this week. <\/p>\n
As of right now, the 19-year-old Sydney-sider can walk through her local shopping centre largely unnoticed despite the proliferation of movie posters bearing her face. <\/p>\n
But as of this Thursday, when she will join Dwayne \u201cThe Rock\u201d Johnson for a blue carpet event in her home town as part of a global press tour for the live action version of the beloved Disney animated adventure Moana that will also include Shanghai, London, Rio de Janeiro, Miami, Puerto Rico, Los Angeles, New York and Tokyo, she can expect a whole lot more attention.<\/p>\n
With Laga’aia in the title role of the intrepid Pacific Island teenager on a seafaring mission to save her people and Johnson reprising his role as the shapeshifting demigod trickster Maui, big things are expected of Moana when it\u2019s released in cinemas on July 9. Laga’aia thinks she\u2019s ready for life in the spotlight \u2013 but also glad she\u2019s from a down-to-earth family and a relaxed part of the world. <\/p>\n
\u201cSaying goodbye to that \u2013 if I do have to \u2013 will be hard,\u201d Laga’aia says of the prospect of losing her anonymity. \u201cI\u2019ll be like \u2018dang \u2013 I\u2019m no longer incognito\u2019. I\u2019m really excited to get to be a part of it \u2026 but I think in Australia and America it\u2019s super different. <\/p>\n
\u201cIn America I feel like they have more of a celebrity culture than we do down here. People will see a Hemsworth brother and they\u2019ll be like \u2018oh there\u2019s a Hemsworth \u2013 anyway, this is what I was doing on the weekend \u2026.\u2019. but I can\u2019t even picture what it\u2019s going to look like stepping into this new chapter of this film.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s already been a long journey for Laga’aia \u2013 the daughter of veteran actor and Play School presenter Jay Laga’aia \u2013 to get to this point. It started three years ago with a post on the Disney Instagram page announcing the global search for Moana and after some badgering from her agent and mother, Laga’aia finally self-recorded an audition (as did two of her sisters) the day it was due. <\/p>\n
\u201cI filmed it in her bedroom up against a random wall,\u201d she says with a laugh. \u201cI did two takes and then I was like, \u2018I\u2019m done \u2013 I\u2019m not doing it again\u2019. And I very belligerently gave it to her in a very 16-year-old girl fashion. But once I got the first call-back, I was like, \u2018Oh, okay \u2013 maybe I should take this a little more seriously because now I really don\u2019t want to lose it\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n
Many more call-backs later (she thinks it\u2019s seven but she genuinely can\u2019t remember) \u2013 including an intimidating, final, in-person audition in an empty New York theatre \u2013 and she\u2019d landed the role. Then the real work began. <\/p>\n
Although Laga’aia went to the Newtown School of the Performing Arts and did a Diploma of Stage and Screen performance at the prestigious National Institute of the Dramatic Arts (NIDA), her sole screen credit to that point was playing a younger version of Samoan New Zealand actor Frankie Adams (who coincidentally now plays her mother in Moana) in the Prime Video drama The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart. Being front and centre in an all-singing, all-dancing, action-and-stunt heavy US$200 million blockbuster with hundreds of cast and crew was another challenge entirely. <\/p>\n
\u201cStepping into something this big, I didn\u2019t even know what I was going into,\u201d she admits. \u201cI have seen behind the scenes footage, but there\u2019s only so much that you can learn and try and teach yourself. I think the best way to do it is to just get out there and go. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe had three months of pre-production and then we were shooting and I think after those three months, I was like \u2018someone bring a camera out \u2013 we\u2019re going to film the movie, right?\u201d<\/p>\n
Having veteran Johnson by her side, Laga’aia says, was both a comforting and educational experience and his presence, professionalism and inclusiveness of her as newcomer have given her a \u201cbaseline\u201d to aspire to for her future in the industry. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe best thing about DJ is that you can learn from him when he\u2019s not actually trying to teach you anything,\u201d she says. \u201cHe will say hello to everyone. Everyone gets the chance to have their DJ moment and everyone\u2019s feeling seen and represented. He\u2019s a big guy so it\u2019s very easy to feel like you\u2019re standing in the shadow of him, especially when it\u2019s just the two of us. <\/p>\n
\u201cBut he was so adamant and so big on \u2026 \u2018okay Catie what do you think?\u2019 Or \u2018what\u2019s your opinion\u2019. And I was like, \u2018I\u2019m supposed to have one of those? That wasn\u2019t in my contract\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n
But if Laga’aia was impressed by Johnson, she was positively overwhelmed by Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda, who composed music for the animated original and wrote a new song, All Along the Way for this version. Miranda\u2019s long-time collaborator Thomas Kail directed the new Moana and meeting the pair of them in New York, the home of Broadway, was almost too much for Laga’aia. <\/p>\n
\u201cI saw him and I just collapsed to the floor,\u201d she says with a laugh. \u201cI was crying and sweating. I don\u2019t know what about him was so shocking for me to me. I was like, \u2018There is no way that this person is standing in front of me\u2019. To this day, I have never been starstruck by somebody the way I was starstruck by Lin.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s another super vibrant human being that radiates this incredible joy and he\u2019s so proud and so happy to be a part of something like this and obviously his culture is a huge thing to him so I think he was excited get to experience a new one.\u201d<\/p>\n
Seeing her own South Pacific culture \u2013 Laga’aia is of Samoan and English descent \u2013 up on the big screen was one of the reasons that the original film had such a huge impact on the aspiring actor when she first saw it as a nine-year-old in 2016. She hopes that will carry on to the next generation of Pacific Islanders who see not only her face, but those of the other actors and hundreds of extras in the film. <\/p>\n
\u201cTo see my own face almost on screen with a character that I really felt represented by and she had emotions like mine and she had grit like me \u2013 it felt like I could see aspects of myself in her,\u201d she says. \u201cAnd I feel like a lot of my siblings and a lot of my Pacific Islander friends had that same experience. That\u2019s a very cool thing to get to experience so young and a lot of people in the previous generation of Pacific Islanders, specifically Pacific Islander young women didn\u2019t get that.\u201d<\/p>\n
The strong theme of family in Moana also struck a chord. As one of eight child children, she says she leaned heavily on her parents and her siblings while making the movie, knowing that their support and ability to make her laugh could help her get through the most stressful of days. <\/p>\n
\u201cFamily is the backbone of that film and it\u2019s definitely the backbone of my life,\u201d she says. \u201cI couldn\u2019t have done any of it physically, literally without my family.\u201d<\/p>\n
Laga’aia says that the best advice she got throughout the whole experience came from her father Jay, a 45-year veteran of stage, television, film, music and kids entertainment in Australia and his birth country New Zealand. When he accompanied her to that final audition in the Big Apple and she was feeling sick with nerves, he told her to just take a moment to appreciate everything she\u2019d already achieved. <\/p>\n
\u201cHe said \u2018You\u2019ve done so much and you\u2019ve had such an incredible experience with this movie so far that even if you don\u2019t get it, you\u2019ve come out of this with something\u2019, she recalls.<\/p>\n
\u201cHaving that mindset of celebrating the opportunities that you have right now and celebrating the moments you have right now is the best way to live life. It\u2019s the most present way that you can live life and experience things.\u201d <\/p>\n
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