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Rebecca Rubin
Senior Film and Media Reporter
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©Walt Disney Co./Courtesy Everett Collection Back in 2015, when “Hamilton” was the toast of Broadway, director Thomas Kail always knew where to find the musical’s creator and star Lin-Manuel Miranda when he wasn’t on stage.
“I would hear something coming from the dressing room, and I was like, ‘Is he writing ‘Moana‘ again?'” Kail says.
Indeed, Miranda was using his downtime on “Hamilton” to compose the soundtrack for Disney’s 2016 animated adventure “Moana,” which includes such memorable tunes as “How Far I’ll Go” and “You’re Welcome.” In between rehearsals, Kail remembers Miranda recruiting cast members like Phillipa Soo to record demos of songs before sending them off to the studio.
“‘Moana’ was right alongside me in that way,” says Kail, who also directed Miranda’s other Broadway hit, “In The Heights,” as well as the FX’s series “Fosse/ Verdon.” “It felt like a friend that lived in another town but moved to be really close to us.”
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After a decade in its orbit, Kail got his own chance to dive in to the world of “Moana” with the live-action remake, which opens in theaters on July 10. Like the original, the story revolves around the strong-willed daughter of a village chief who is chosen by the ocean to restore prosperity to her island. Newcomer Catherine Laga’aia stars as the plucky heroine Moana while Dwayne Johnson reprises his role from the animated films as the tattooed demigod Maul, who helps the Polynesian heroine on her journey.
Ahead of the film’s release, Kail spoke to Variety about bringing Maui’s massive muscles (and controversial mane) to life, adapting those ambitious musical numbers and why he doesn’t read reviews of his work.
What made Disney think of you to direct the live-action “Moana”?I don’t know the answer. The spirit of the film rhymes with a lot of things I’ve made. It’s a question of finding your place within your community. It’s hearing something inside of you telling you that you might be different from what other people think of you. Those things are thematic in “In the Heights” and “Hamilton.” Maybe it sparked something for them. If nothing else, maybe they just thought it would be really sweet to see Lin and I sitting next to each other again. [Laughs].
What direction did the studio give for adapting the original?When I was approached, there was a script by Dana Ledoux Miller and Jared Bush that existed. I think if you’re going to make a movie called “Moana” and have it not adhere to that story, you’re making a mistake. We wanted to trust the story and characters. It is not broken. I come from the world of theater where we do revivals all the time. That’s the lifeblood of our business, trying to breathe something new into into a text that existed.
Now, our film has scenes that are totally different. It has different people saying things. It has different jokes. It has different order of things. It is not a mirror of the original script in any way. It is the same story and same characters, but it was not just connecting a dot between this and the original. Our hope was that because it’s flesh-and-blood human beings, there’s an inherent difference from the embodiment of that, in terms of the preservation of culture and also what the movie feels like when you see a 16-year-old who’s in the middle of a storm or facing a lava monster. That’s a very different feeling than when you’re watching the animated version.
What was the most ambitious musical number to tackle?“Where You Are” is 200 dancers in the middle of a practical village. That had a lot of moving parts and felt like site-specific theater. We built that village. It was 110 degrees with humidity when we were shooting it. That had a degree of difficulty that felt significant.
Dwayne Johnson was instrumental to the development of the live-action film and was a producer, but was there ever a conversation about having someone other than him to play Maui?Dwayne is Maui. He was always going to be the one. So that was definitely one of the very appealing parts of this package.
What did Dwayne Johnson wear to get into Maui’s absurdly buff body? Obviously he’s already a very buff man.He is. Turns out, he’s very strong with the suit and without the suit. [Laughs] It was like a skin that just went on top of his body. There were a few reasons for the body suit. There’s the practicality of it. Maui gets in and out of the water a lot. Sometimes we’re shooting both those things within three hours of each other, and it wouldn’t be possible to maintain the look. Also, Maui has these tattoos that come to life during the film, so we used it to be able to capture them. We built it to look like Dwayne. That was the goal, and I think it was achieved quite well.
Were you surprised by the reaction to his wig?My joke about it was that I mostly saw Dwayne on set, so I didn’t know he was bald. Every time I saw Dwayne, he’s wearing that wig. I was like, “Oh, it’s great.” As the conversation unfolded on the original “Moana,” pre-2016 when the prospect of Maui, who was going to be played by Dwayne, was presented to the advisors on the film without hair, it was immediately flagged because Maui’s power and spirit comes from his hair. Maui without hair is not Maui. So we knew Maui had to have it. It’s a different experience when you see it in a two-minute trailer. When folks have been watching the movie, you sort of say “there’s Maui,” and then you don’t think about it.
Do you reads reviews of your work?I get the gist of things. I’ve been doing this a long time, and I learned early on that getting a sense of a conversation was enough for me. I want as many people as possible to watch the movie, and I love making things for people. If that can be a tool to get people to watch it, great. But I also feel like there’s lots of ways to reach the people.
As the parent of young kids, how many times have you seen the animated “Moana”?The movie has been watched, is what I’ll tell you. I’m aware when I drop one of my little ones off at school, it’s really different now. And they’re like, “Hey, this better be good.” I didn’t know it was going to be so present. But there’s a lot of parents out there that are like, “You better bring this home for us.”
What’s the status of your “Fiddler on the Roof” adaptation?My hope is that it can find a home. Steven Levinson wrote a gorgeous script. It was right before the pandemic, and then the world changed. Musical storytelling seems to go in phases, but my hope is with this and “Wicked,” people are reminded there’s a huge appetite for musicals. If someone wants to talk about making it, I certainly would be proud to engage in any conversation.
“Hamilton” just celebrated a big anniversary, and there were rumors the entire original cast was going to reprise their roles on Broadway. What happened with that?We were going to do an event, and we were planning it in November of 2024 when we were shooting “Moana” in Hawaii. Lin was there, and we were talking about the idea of the whole group getting back together. That evolved into what became the Tonys medley. It was so thrilling. I was backstage with them, and I said, “I want to watch this from the house.” I went to the audience and watched 6,000 people explode. It ended up being exactly the right way to celebrate it.
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