ACTRESS CATHERINE LAGA AIA Making Moana My Own

THE 19-YEAR-OLD STAR OF DISNEY’S LIVE-ACTION REMAKE IS VOYAGING FROM HER ‘NORMAL’ SYDNEY CHILDHOOD TO MOVIE STARDOM

- JACK SMART

How Far They'll Go Laga'aia and Johnson (in April) kicked off their global press tour in Hawaii. "He's my uncle," quips the actress.

When Catherine Laga‘aia stepped onto the bustling island set of the live-action remake of Moana, she couldn’t help but feel right at home. “I’m one of eight,” says the 19-year-old Samoan Australian actress, who calls her Sydney upbringing “the most normal, run-of-the-mill teenage years ever.” The home she and her seven siblings shared with her actor father, Jay, and educator mother, Sandie, “felt like Motunui, we had so many people always running around,” she quips, referring to Moana’s Polynesian-inspired island of villagers. “All you want when you’re in a group of siblings that large is your own thing. You want to be the best at something. You want something to be yours.”

That something is now Moana, the wayfinding chieftess (not princess!) who first dazzled audiences in Disney’s 2016 hit animated musical. Cast at age 16 in Disney’s live-action reimagining (in theaters July 10) out of thousands of submissions, Laga‘aia won over director Thomas Kail within “about 10 seconds” of their in-person meeting, he recalls. “She’s something special,” says the original