By Courtney Potter
Adventure is calling—and it’s music to our ears!
We’re mere days away from the premiere of Walt Disney Animation Studios’ Moana 2, which picks up with the tenacious wayfinder (voiced by Auli‘i Cravalho) three years after the events of the first beloved film. An unexpected call from her ancestors sends Moana on a journey to the far seas of Oceania and into dangerous, long-lost waters. With the help of Maui (voiced by Dwayne Johnson) and a motley crew of unlikely seafarers, she faces a truly life-changing quest…
D23: The Official Disney Fan Club recently had the chance to chat exclusively with Abigail Barlow and Emily Bear—the Grammy®Award-winning duo (The Unofficial Bridgerton Musical) who penned five brand-new songs for the film! (Grammy nominee Opetaia Foa‘i and three-time Grammy winning composer Mark Mancina—whose music was heard in the first Moana—return and provide three new songs as well.) See what they have to say about joining the world of Motunui; working with the likes of Cravalho, Foa‘i, and Johnson; what they hope audiences take away from the film; and so much more:
D23: What excites you both about this story? And about helping bring Moana and Maui’s latest adventures to musical life?
Emily Bear (EB): What I love about Moana is that her journey is wholly her own. In the first movie, there was a journey of self-identity and self-discovery, and that continues in the second one. So to be able to share the story of such an inspiring and powerful young woman—who is not defined by anyone else around her; she’s her own person—is really cool.
Abigail Barlow (AB): I agree—she is a true Disney heroine. And I also love that on this journey, she has a new crew; she really gets the chance to be a leader. Seeing that, and getting to represent that in music—and getting to explore new voices that are added to this story—has been really fun too.
EB: Oh, and the Pacific Islands culture and the music—and working with Opetaia—have been so insanely cool! To learn so much about how music is such a huge part of the way that the peoples of the Pacific and their stories live. It just makes the whole thing so much more meaningful.
D23: I was just about to ask—how was it working with Foa‘i and Mancina, as the “veterans” of Moana-related music?
AB: Magical!
EB: The way their brains work is so cool. And that’s what I love about collaboration, too—they view music in a completely different way than we do. The stuff that they come up with, it really is just magical; it’s something that we would have never, ever thought of. We told them this during a [recording] session, but all we hoped for is that our songs were a beautiful vehicle for them to share their voice.
D23: Was there something you set out to accomplish, specifically, with your songs for the film? Anything you felt was crucial to illustrate, or emphasize?
AB: There was a poster that was in the Moana 2 story room two years ago, when we first started on this project, and it said, “You never stop discovering who you are.” And I think that still rings true now that we’re getting close to releasing this movie. I think that really was the main goal of the music—to continue Moana’s journey of discovering herself, discovering her people, her culture, and also remaining in the world that has already been built of beautiful music from the first film.
EB: Our world gets so much bigger in this movie; the scope is so much larger—and I think we wanted our music to reflect that. So the music is bigger, it branches out more… and also giving Moana a more mature voice. She’s older, she’s grown in her views, and the world has changed. So especially with her big song, we really wanted to show that growth and that vulnerability, and her new awareness that she didn’t have when she was 16. She’s almost 20 now—a lot can happen in three years. Trust me, we know! We were there not that long ago. I felt like a whole new person from 16 to 19.
D23: Speaking of Moana—what was the collaboration like, working with Cravalho?
AB: She is so talented; just so incredibly poised and a joy to work with. She really brought Moana to these songs. They didn’t come alive until she sang them. And getting to collaborate, getting to find the direction of her vocal performance—it was such a joy. Magic all around.
EB: It’s rare that we get to work with someone who’s close to our age, writing for a character that’s also close to our age. So I think we were able to communicate in a way that maybe we couldn’t do with someone who’s a different generation or different demographic or whatever. I feel like when we were working with her, we were able to push each other in a way that was really very cool. And the camaraderie was amazing. And she’s just undoubtedly amazing.
D23: And what about the directors—David Derrick Jr., Jason Hand, and Dana Ledoux Miller?
AB: This team cares so much about this film, and about the culture. It’s been so wonderful to learn; I feel like life has been a classroom for the past two years. Getting to sit in on story trust meetings—where they take apart the storyline and then put it back together, and ask and answer questions constantly, to make this movie the best it can possibly be—was just glorious.
EB: Yeah—I mean, the care that they had for the world and the story and the history and the connection to heritage was incredible. I remember David was showing us how much detail and care and research went into every little thing you see on that screen—from the way that Moana’s hair is parted to the etchings on the side of a canoe that few might notice. But it’s all there.
AB: And handled with care.
EB: So much care.
D23: Do you have any particularly standout memories from the whole process?
AB: So many beautiful ones. I guess one that stands out was when Dwayne heard his song for the first time. We got a FaceTime call that we thought was coming from Jared [Bush, co-writer/executive producer of Moana 2 and Walt Disney Animation Studios chief creative officer], so we answered, but it was Dwayne. And I called him “Mr. The Rock”—because I was so overwhelmed, and I’m in my Barbie robe getting ready for a Broadway show. And Emily was in the car…EB: He starts saying “Don’t crash, don’t crash!”
AB: And then he said he got chills, listening to the song. That was all we needed to hear—that he loved the song and that he was excited to record it. It was a magical moment that also made it feel that much more real. Although it still doesn’t feel real, and I don’t think it will feel real until it’s in the theaters and we’re sitting there watching it. But his response was everything.
EB: I’ll also never forget the first time that we presented the music to the team. It got easier after that first time, but—you’re working with all new people, you’re in a new story with new characters, and you’re just hoping and praying [they like it]. The first time that you play something for someone, it’s very scary. Of course, we wanted this to work really well. So seeing their reactions—the story team’s faces—after we played the song will be forever burned into my brain; it was amazing. To know that, from the start, we had a connection to Moana that other people resonated with was very special. It gave us a lot of motivation and trust in ourselves to keep going.
D23: How do you feel now that the movie’s about to premiere? And what do you hope audiences take away from Moana’s journey in this film?
AB: This whole process from beginning to now has been so wonderful. There’s nothing else quite like animation—and Disney Animation at that—and the creation of the films that are so beloved by the culture; that have cemented themselves in culture. I hope that audiences come away from the film feeling that, like the poster on our wall, “You never stop discovering who you are.” That would be a great message for little girls to take away from the film, especially.
EB: It’s truly been the honor of a lifetime, working at Disney. And we hope that everyone loves the movie as much as we do!