New Art Released and Lead Role Announced for Disney’s ‘Moana’

We’re excited about the news from Walt Disney Animation Studios today announcing their selection of the actress who will voice the title character of their 56th animated motion picture Moana.

The young actress’ name is Auli’i Carvalho and she is a native Hawaiian (she lives on Oahu). Check out this fun video Disney released about her casting:

Here’s some fantastic character of Moana art done by the brilliant Jin Kim (courtesy of Disney and People magazine):

And here are both Moana and Maui (voiced by Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson) in all of their CGI glory:

And here’s the non-CGI Rock in front of some Moana concept are:

Speaking of The Rock, check out this great Instagram post from him today:

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IT'S OFFICIAL: After months and months of worldwide casting calls, we've finally found our next DISNEY Princess… #MOANA. I'm pumped to welcome 14yr old @AuliiCravalho of Mililani, Hawaii to our project. What's amazing about this story is that she didn't think she was good enough so she never auditioned. Fortunately, one of our Oahu casting agents discovered her singing at a charity competition and the rest is history. * An awesome lesson to all young kids out there… work hard, have confidence in yourselves and never think you're not good enough because you never know what the future holds. Congratulations Auli'i! Can't wait to work with you and watch you bring this new Disney Princess to life. #YesThatsMeOnTheRight #HisNameIsMaui #HesADemiGod #AndHePutsMoanaInHerPlace #SoHeThinks #DisneyAnimation #MOANA #TimeToSing

A post shared by therock (@therock) on Oct 7, 2015 at 7:42am PDT