Auli’i Cravalho Needs People to Understand What It’s Like to Be a Theater Kid

It’s been an incredibly musical year for Auli’i Cravalho. The Disney star kicked off 2024 by playing edgy Janis ’Imi’ike in Tina Fey’s Mean Girls movie musical. She then made her Broadway debut by stepping into the iconic role of Sally Bowles in the Tony-nominated revival of Cabaret, opposite Adam Lambert. And now she’s reprising the role that made her a household name for Disney fans, returning as the eponymous adventure-seeking princess in the highly anticipated animated musical film Moana 2.

“I remind myself that the work in this industry is always seasonal, so there will be a time in the very near future where I will have nothing, nothing at all,” the 24-year-old tells Vanity Fair over Zoom. While she’s grateful for all the opportunities, starring in a Broadway show while simultaneously voicing a Disney princess has its challenges. “A couple of months ago even, I was still doing records for Moana 2 and getting into her voice, and then getting into Sally’s voice in the evening times for the show. It made me feel a little schizophrenic: Where’s Auli’i again? Who am I?”

It might be easier for the actor to find herself again if her hometown of Kohala, Hawaii, weren’t so far away from Broadway’s Kit Kat Club. “I haven’t been home in the last six months because I’ve been here focusing on the show. But I try to make it back at least a few times a year,” she says. “There’s nowhere—not Los Angeles, not New York, not any of the locations that I filmed at—that makes me feel at home besides Hawaii. So I get back as often as I can.”

When she does get a bit of a break, she knows exactly what she’ll be doing: seeing Wicked. And she has a message for anyone poking fun at Wicked stars Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo’s emotional press tour too. “I need people to understand what it’s like to be a theater kid. Being a theater kid is emotional. Get off my girls Ariana and Cynthia’s backs. Do you understand me? You don’t know what it’s like to be working on a film for this long. The film is two hours and 40 minutes long. If you’re not crying after working with someone for that long, and you’re both theater kids and you’re singing live…I am very passionate about this.”

Vanity Fair: Moana has been such a substantial part of your life and career. What was it like stepping back into Moana’s shoes for round two?

Auli’i Cravalho: It has been a full decade for me, and for our fans, it’s been eight years since the film has come out. In the Moana-verse, three years have passed for her in Motunui, so it’s also been really nice to have my growth juxtaposed with hers. I love this character so much. Her impact continues to surprise me.

I rerecorded the first film in Ōlelo Hawai’i, which is the native Hawaiian language, which is unfortunately a dying language. It was forbidden to be spoken for a few generations, and now [Moana] is being used as curriculum to assist the resurgence of that language come back. Moana is also one of the most widely translated Disney films, including Indigenous languages like Te Reo Māori, Samoan, Tahitian, and Ōlelo Hawai’i. So she means a lot to me, but she also means a lot to a lot of other people.

The music in the first film was written by Lin-Manuel Miranda, but the second movie features songs from modern composers Abigail Barlow and Emily Bear. What was that like for you and Dwayne Johnson?

They truly grew up in the Disney era, so they’re as much of Disney fans as we are. I really appreciate their songwriting prowess. The fact that in our first film we posed the question, “How Far I’ll Go,” and the power ballad “Beyond” [from Moana 2] answers that question. “How far I’ll go? I’ll go beyond.”