Then and Now, It's a Thrill to Star Alongside Stitch

New York Times

2 days ago

When Maia Kealoha learned that she was going to play Lilo in Disney's live-action remake of 'Lilo & Stitch,' she sobbed big, fat, happy tears.
'That might be the first time I was quiet in my whole entire life,' she said of the video call with the film's director, Dean Fleischer Camp, in 2023, when he asked her to be his Lilo.
Kealoha, 8, is a big fan of the original animated film from 2002 about a destructive but adorable alien experiment named Stitch who crash-lands in Hawaii and befriends a young girl named Lilo.
The film, which earned more than $273 million (or $484 million when adjusted for inflation) at the global box office, was one of the first Disney animated movies to be driven by a nonromantic story line. It also won praise for its strong female characters and nuanced depictions of Hawaii.
'I've seen it 1,000 times,' Kealoha, who was born and raised on Hawaii's Big Island, said in a recent video call. 'It's so good.'
Stitch, unsurprisingly, is her favorite character. The rambunctious blue troublemaker also reminds her of someone she knows: Her 1-year-old brother, Micah Kealoha.
'I relate to Nani sometimes when I have to take the blame for my brother, or just protect him,' she said, referring to the adult older sister who becomes Lilo's legal guardian after their parents' deaths. 'And sometimes I have to teach him some lessons and how to be good.'
The film was Kealoha's first time acting onscreen, but for several of her castmates, it was a return to a franchise that has come to encompass three direct-to-video sequels, three television series and a number of theme park rides, as well as oodles upon oodles of Stitch merch.
Among them: Chris Sanders, a director and writer of the original animated film who created Stitch and has voiced him in almost every Disney production to date, and Tia Carrere, who played Nani originally and now returns as a social worker, Mrs. Kekoa, who checks up on Lilo.
'It's really gratifying to see the amount of excitement surrounding its release,' said Sanders, who recently directed 'The Wild Robot' (2024). 'The greatest hope was for him to be a character that endures. That's something you can't engineer — whether it happens or not is up to the zeitgeist. So the way it has connected is so exciting.'
It's particularly poignant to Sanders that it is Stitch, of all the characters from his films, who has proved to have such a lasting presence.
'For him to be this massive in the Disney universe, I'm really proud of, because he's me,' he said of the lovable misfit and menace. 'It's not a big leap when I write him.'
Carrere was, at 58, too old to play Nani in the live-action adaptation. But the role was a career highlight for her. 'It was so important for me to be able to represent Hawaii,' Carrere, who is from Honolulu, said on a recent video call. So she knew she had to be a part of the reboot in any way possible.
She asked about portraying a new character — a supportive neighbor, Tutu, who becomes a surrogate grandmother to Nani and Lilo — but the filmmakers wanted someone a little older (the role eventually went to the 72-year-old Amy Hill, who voiced the kindly old fruit vendor, Mrs. Hasagawa, in the animated version).
But they came back with a better offer: Would she like to play Mrs. Kekoa, the now friendly and helpful social worker who takes the place of the intimidating Cobra Bubbles character from the animated film?
'It was perfect, because instead of playing Nani, I'm playing Nani's mentor all these years later,' she said.
Though she originally related to Nani, she now also feels for the social worker: In the live-action version, the character was re-envisioned, at Carrere's suggestion, to be a product of the system herself, more interested in helping Nani navigate it than in taking Lilo from her.
'Back then I was younger, I didn't have a kid — I was a little all over the place, a little more Nani-like,' said Carrere, who has younger sisters in addition to an adult daughter. 'Now it's interesting to have the parallel as a woman being more in that mentoring role with younger actresses that I work with.'
In the new film, the back story for Nani (Sydney Agudong) has been expanded: Now, she is a former star student and athlete who had to put her dreams of becoming a marine biologist on hold to take care of Lilo.
Agudong, 24, who is from Kauai, Hawaii, grew up a big fan of the original film, which she watched for the first time when she was a year old. She initially had a case of impostor syndrome, unsure how much to draw on Carrere's portrayal, and how much to put her own stamp on the character. A video call with Carrere shortly after she booked the role, she said, helped guide her.
'She said, 'You got the role because they saw something in you, and you trusted your instincts, so you need to trust that, and you need to have fun with it,' Agudong recalled, adding that Carrere reminded her that she, too, was a big sister (to the actress Siena Agudong) and hailed from Hawaii. ''You need to own that,'' Agudong said Carrere told her.
The younger actress realized, 'She was right, and it gave me a lot of freedom in my artistic expression and in my own identity.'
Nani's determination in the face of obstacles was relatable in the original, but in the new film, her personal sacrifices are an even greater point of emphasis.
Agudong said she conceived of Nani as a young woman whose thoughts frequently get 'stuck in her throat.' She added, 'You could see that she was struggling and kicking her feet under the water like a swan, but then still trying to look as graceful as possible, because she has to stick a smile on her face to be able to keep her sister around.'
In addition to a few new characters and the absence of the original big bad, the whale-like Stitch hunter Captain Gantu, there were other changes for the live-action movie. For one, how those who acted alongside the now-C.G.I.-generated Stitch worked.
In live shots with the actors, the mischievous blue alien was represented by a tennis ball, a person in a gray suit or a lifelike Stitch puppet, Kealoha said. That must have been a bit of a challenging scene partner, right?
'It was actually easy to imagine that Stitch was there because everyone says I have an endless imagination,' Kealoha said, grinning.
The new film also expanded on the original's nods to Hawaiian culture, which now include Nani's ukulele-playing skills and love of surfing.
Agudong had surfed before, casually, but said she enjoyed the water training she was able to do with local big-wave surfers.
'They were also locals and so it felt like you were just going to the beach with family,' she said. 'It was a dream come true. I felt like I got my childhood back.'
Over all, the actors said, they are proud of how the new film recalls the original while also very much charting its own course.
'It's a really nice way to share light and love and the sense of aloha and ohana that is Hawaii,' Agudong said, referring to the Hawaiian words conveying harmony and family. She added, 'I'm really excited for my community to be able to see themselves in that.'
Carrere remembers how excited fans were to see a 'thick, brown Disney princess' when the original was released 23 years ago.
Nani is 'sturdy, she's strong, she's a surfer, she's athletic, she's running in her boots and cutoff jean shorts and her T-shirt,' Carrere said. 'She's not a dainty, waifish person. I remember a lot of girls coming up and commenting on that because they felt that their body type was celebrated.'
Kealoha said she hoped that a new generation of girls could also relate to her Lilo — and not just to feeling misunderstood.
'She's fearless. She's strong-minded. We both have big hearts. She loves her ohana very much, and she would do anything for her people — or aliens,' she said, laughing.