{"id":2486932,"date":"2026-07-03T18:30:56","date_gmt":"2026-07-03T18:30:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2486932"},"modified":"2026-07-03T18:30:56","modified_gmt":"2026-07-03T18:30:56","slug":"that-was-insane-catherine-laga%ca%bbaia-on-recording-new-moana-music-with-lin-manuel-miranda","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/that-was-insane-catherine-laga%ca%bbaia-on-recording-new-moana-music-with-lin-manuel-miranda\/","title":{"rendered":"‘That was insane’: Catherine Laga\u02bbaia on recording new ‘Moana’ music with Lin-Manuel Miranda"},"content":{"rendered":"

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It’s been ten years since we first met Moana, and next week, Disney’s is debuting a live-action adaptation of the animated classic.<\/p>\n

Breathing life into the story means putting a real face, and real Polynesian traditions front and center on the big screen.<\/p>\n

I sat down with the new Moana, Catherine Laga’aia, in Oahu, Hawaii, about her journey to becoming Moana.<\/p>\n

The 19-year-old Samoan Australian breakout star is making her feature film debut.<\/a><\/p>\n

She’s bringing to life one of Disney’s most beloved animated characters: the adventurous voyager Moana.<\/p>\n

RELATED: Catherine Laga’aia makes emotional feature film debut in Disney’s live-action ‘Moana’<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

“It’s just so cool,” says Laga’aia.<\/p>\n

Catherine was just nine years old when the first animated film hit theaters.<\/p>\n

“To me, Moana was an icon,” says Laga’aia. “She was an idol.”<\/p>\n

Hawaiian breakout star Auli’i Cravalho was also a teenager when she first voiced the role for not one, but two animated films. She’s now an executive producer on this live-action film.<\/p>\n

Cravalho is an only child who says she now gets a sister.<\/p>\n

“This is a sisterhood,” says Laga’aia.<\/p>\n

RELATED: Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson drew inspiration from grandfather in return as Maui in live-action ‘Moana’<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

And now, Laga’aia is bringing the iconic original soundtrack famously written by Broadway legend Lin-Manuel Miranda to live action.<\/p>\n

“I know this music like the back of my hand,” says Laga’aia. “I couldn’t forget it if I tried.”<\/p>\n

Of working with Miranda, she says: “That was insane. Getting to work with theater legends Tommy Kail, Alex Lacamoire and Lin-Manuel Miranda, you know they’re only going to produce greatness. I was very excited to work with them.”<\/p>\n

Miranda wrote a brand new song for this film called “Along the Way,” which features Catherine alongside Auli’i, and their demigod Maui, played by Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson.<\/p>\n

“It’s like knighting the next generation with the same passion and feeling and fervor,” says Laga’aia.<\/p>\n

Moana is in theaters on July 10.<\/p>\n

The Walt Disney Company is the parent company of this ABC station.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Copyright \u00a9 2026 WPVI-TV. All Rights Reserved.<\/p>\n

\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source 6abc.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s been ten years since we first met Moana, and next week, Disney’s is debuting a live-action adaptation of the animated classic. Breathing life into the story means putting a real face, and real Polynesian traditions front and center on the big screen. I sat down with the new Moana, Catherine Laga’aia, in Oahu, Hawaii, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2486933,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25179],"tags":[489666],"class_list":["post-2486932","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-music","tag-489666"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/That-was-insane-Catherine-Laga\u02bbaia-on-recording-new-Moana-music.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2486932","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2486932"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2486932\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2486934,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2486932\/revisions\/2486934"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2486933"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2486932"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2486932"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2486932"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}