Key Points
Live-action Moana star Catherine Laga’aia praised nepotism ahead of her breakout role.
The daughter of Star Wars actor Jay Laga’aia, the actress said she “inherited nepotism.”
She added that she hopes she makes her father proud with her acting in the Disney remake.
Disney‘s live-action Moana star Catherine Laga’aia has experienced just how far she’ll go while riding the wave of nepotism.
Ahead of her breakout role in the highly anticipated remake (in theaters Friday), the actress joked that her career was bolstered by the path her Star Wars franchise actor father, Jay Lagaʻaia, paved for her with his role in the sci-fi fantasy films.
“I inherited nepotism, that’s for sure. I’ll take that anytime,” she joked in an interview with Entertainment Weekly‘s sister publication PEOPLE.
Jay Laga’aia and Catherine Laga’aia at ‘The Lion King’ premiere
Credit: Don Arnold/WireImage
Jay, 62, portrayed Captain Typho in Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones and Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith in 2002 and 2005, respectively.
“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,” Catherine — one of Jay’s eight children — continued. “He knows what’s good, he knows what he likes. I’m someone on his side. That’s the part of my family that I’m representing.”
The Australian actress said that her father’s adoration was at the forefront of her mind as she filmed the lead role in Disney’s live-action Moana remake, which also saw Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson reprise his role from the studio’s animated movies.
“So coming back to that, it’s like a ‘what would my dad do,’ but it’s also I need him to be, at the end of the day, proud of the legacy that I’m extending for him,” Catherine continued.
In a prior interview with EW about reprising the role of Maui in the live-action film, Johnson opened up about having to wear a heavy prosthetic suit in order to play the part physically on the big screen.
“The thing that became a challenge, that I had to work through very quickly, that I didn’t anticipate was the prosthetics and the hair and then the body. That is an additional 40 pounds on you,” he observed. “There’s a freedom when you perform, whether it’s as an actor or singing. So that was an adjustment on how to actually work my emotions through the 40 pounds of prosthetics and hair and body that I had on me.”
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He also praised the film’s commitment to accurately portraying various parts of the culture represented in the project.
“We were doing our best to make sure that we were always representing our Polynesian culture in every department,” Johnson noted. “Some department heads, story, development, just everything.”
Moana opens Friday in theaters.
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