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 big 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 help 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 new 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.”

Is there a song from Moana 2 that sticks out for you?

The first song that I ever heard was “We’re Back,” and I think it’s so effective in reintroducing us to Motunui. It has that island flavor that we know and love from our first film, but then the lyrics tell us that we’re on an all-new journey. And I do have to give my flowers to “Beyond,” because I asked for a challenge and they definitely gave me a challenge. They were like, “Let’s have a whispery part and an emotional moment between you and Grandma Tala. Don’t cry, keep singing.” I appreciate my girls for pushing me in the right direction.

How have you been juggling your Cabaret schedule with Moana 2 heading into Thanksgiving?

My girls, Gabi [Campo] and Ayla [Ciccone-Burton], my swings, are so fantastic. I thank them so much for helping me out while I’ve been away for about a week. We are doing three double-show days. So I’ll do two doubles and then I have more press over the weekend, so then I’m taking the Sunday off. Me and my ENT, best buds. We are on text chains; we send voice notes back and forth. So it is also me relying on the incredible talent in the Kit Kat Club to help me get through these specific periods of time where I am burning the candle at both ends.

They also helped support me when I was out for about three weeks where I almost had vocal hemorrhaging. That was me thinking that I could do it all, which is not the case. Broadway is its own job. Do not abuse it. When they give you one day off, you have to use that one day off, especially when you’re in a show like Cabaret.

What happened to your voice?

I had been sick. At the start of our production, there was a bug that went around the theater, and everybody’s kissing everybody in the show. I love Cabaret for that. What we think is, I got a little bit of a vocal injury, and then I had different recordings happening on the side, I had press happening on the side, and then I would do the show, eight shows a week. I am not going to come to Broadway and then be like, “I think I’m actually going to sit out this one.” I was going to do eight shows a week. I overdid it, and I saw my ENT like every other week, and I was showing no improvement. Then I woke up one morning after doing the show in the evening, and I thought I tasted blood. I felt like I had screamed at a football game. I saw Dr. Pittman, and he prescribed me a whiteboard—which is comedic hell by the way, because did he prescribe me anything else but vocal rest? No. What did I have to do? Stop talking. But all in all, it was for the best. I’ve made full recovery, and I’m very happy to be back in the show. It happens to the best of us.

Sally Bowles has been played by so many iconic actresses: Liza Minnelli, Natasha Richardson, Emma Stone. Can you talk a little bit about your conception of the character?

Rebecca Frecknall is our director. She’s the first woman to direct Cabaret. I absolutely appreciated her insight and her support in some of my choices. The joy of Sally is that every Sally is different. There is nothing in the script that tells us where she’s from, where exactly her accent hails from, if she’s even British. There are so many times in the show that I asked, When am I lying? When am I telling the truth? When am I bearing my soul? I believe I do in “Maybe This Time”—Sally is someone who wants to be loved and, I think, easily loves.

And my Cliff [Calvin Leon Smith] is so, so special because we wanted to make sure that our friendship was really strong, as we both are playing these characters as young, queer individuals. The friendship that comes with finding another queer person, I think, was our starting point. Then the love and then the lust and then the pregnancy scare, and then losing each other at the very end is that much more painful because they’ve lost the one person who knows them at their best and their worst.

I know queerness has been part of your journey as well. What has that been like for you, to be both a Disney star and a queer person in the world?

I didn’t expect to represent people simply by being alive. I feel like I’ve met a lot of individuals at the stage door who see me as a a young woman of mixed descent. Calvin Leon Smith [and I have] talked about our own race in that time, in 1920s Berlin. Of myself, easily white passing, and Calvin being a Black queer man and how that affects our performances as well. But being queer is a really, I think, beautiful addition to the Kit Kat Club.