Disney casts 17-year-old Australian Catherine Laga'aia to star in live-action 'Moana'

An Australian teenager of Samoan heritage has been announced as the star of the upcoming live-action version of the hit Disney movie 'Moana.'

An Australian teenager of Samoan heritage has been announced as the star of the upcoming live-action version of the hit Disney movie “Moana.”

Seventeen-year-old Catherine Laga‘aia has been cast as the eponymous heroine of the movie, which begins filming this summer.

The movie will celebrate “the islands, communities and traditions of Pacific Islanders in a spectacular adventure,” according to the announcement from Disney, which added: “Catherine Laga‘aia will be voyaging to Motunui and beyond as the adventurous teenager who sails out on a daring mission to save her people in Disney’s upcoming live-action Moana.”

Laga‘aia’s IMDB profile shows just one other listing – for three episodes of the TV series “The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart,” which also starred Sigourney Weaver.

She is no stranger to showbiz, however, as her father is Jay Laga‘aia, a New Zealand-born actor who starred in two of the “Star Wars” movies.

Disney announced the casting online, saying Laga‘aia will appear alongside Dwayne Johnson as Maui, the larger-than-life demigod for whom he provided the voice in the original 2016 animated feature. He is also one of the movie’s producers, alongside, among others, “Hamilton” creator Lin-Manuel Miranda, who wrote much of the original movie’s soundtrack.

In a statement included in the announcement, Laga‘aia, who lives in Sydney, said: “I’m really excited to embrace this character because Moana is one of my favourites.