Auli'i Cravalho

Nine years before starring on 'The Power,' Auli'i Cravalho booked her first role: the titular princess in Disney's 'Moana.' Today, the actor reflects on ...

So I would hope to retain some of that childhood joy for a little longer. Hold yourself a little longer, and allow yourself to be young a little longer. And I talked to myself a lot, because I was also an only child. We read a lot of Hawaiiana books — a lot of things specifically tied to the polytheistic nature of Hawai’i. I went to a school that was for all Hawaiian students. So we needed to learn mo’okū’auhau, which is a listing of our genealogy, we would learn in a chant. So expression of myself has changed so much since I was 14. “Not to be cliché and call my life a Disney movie, but I have gone quite far beyond the reef,” she says. I was in deep. And I was hoping to make it into a natural sunscreen.” I did a lot of sports. “At 14, it was a very exciting time of getting Moana,” Cravalho says.