Moana, cast interview: Dwayne Johnson, Catherine Laga’aia

The statements of Dwayne Johnson

"Those amazing. It was a, it was a, it was a real honor to bring Maui uh to life from animation to live-action. Two reasons. One, he was inspired by my grandfather, the high chief Peter Maivia. I lost him when I was 10 years old, he was one of my heroes. And when you see pictures of my grandfather and Maui, they, it's spitting image. And also, uh the honor of representing culture, and I feel like with our Polynesian culture, whether it's Polynesian culture, European, Asian culture, Latin culture, it's all shared culture. And I think there's just structural values and anchors in our culture that everyone can relate to. And you see that in the movie."

The statements of Catherine Laga’aia

"Oh, I think it's been a real, really cool journey. I feel like I've learned as much about myself as Moana did herself on her journey. I feel like I really went through kind of a similar process, almost like in an alternate world, kind of stepping so far away from home into something that I'd never experienced before. So, I think I grew a lot in that process, and I'm really proud of the person who's kind of come out of it. It feels like all the work was like worth it. It feels like that we have created a product that people are so proud of and that we've done the original the justice that it deserves, and we've given it kind of the second breath of life that it so deserves, so I'm I'm really glad that people are enjoying it and excited for it."