Auliʻi Cravalho (/aʊˈliːʔi krəˈvɑːljoʊ/; born November 22, 2000) is an American actress, voice actress and singer, who made her acting debut as the titular character in the 2016 Disney animated feature film Moana. In 2018, Cravalho made her television debut starring as Lilette Suarez in the NBC drama series Rise. 　　Early life 　　Cravalho was born in Oahu, Hawaii. She is of Chinese, Irish, Native Hawaiian, Portuguese, and Puerto Rican descent; her surname is most likely a derivative of the common Portuguese surname Carvalho. At the time she made her breakthrough, she was living in Mililani, Hawaii with her mother, and was in her freshman year of high school at Kamehameha Schools' Kapālama campus. 　　Career 　　Cravalho has stated that she was initially not going to audition for Moana because "there were already so many great submissions over YouTube". However, an Oahu talent agent discovered her at a charity competition and encouraged her to audition for the role. The Walt Disney Company has stated that Cravalho was the last person to audition out of hundreds of actresses. 　　In February 2017, it was announced that she had been cast in the pilot for the NBC drama Rise, which was ordered to series on May 4, 2017. The series premiered on March 13, 2018, but NBC cancelled the series on May 15, 2018 due to low ratings. In November 2017, Cravalho announced she was going to reprise her role as Moana in the first ever Hawaiian-language dubbed Disney movie. The dubbed Moana premiered on June 10, 2018. 　　Cravalho portrayed Ariel in a live-action concert rendition of The Little Mermaid on November 5, 2019. She is set to star in Sorta Like a Rock Star, directed by Brett Haley for Netflix.