Auli'i Cravalho will lead 'The Little Mermaid Live!' production

From left: Queen Latifah, Auli'i Cravalho and Shaggy.

A Polynesian princess will play the mermaid Ariel in the Disney's The Little Mermaid Live! on ABC.

Auli'i Cravallho, who voiced the title role in the animated film Moana, will star in the production featuring a mix of live action, animation and puppetry on Nov. 5 celebrating the classic animated feature's 30th anniversary.

The network also announced Queen Latifah will play the villainous sea witch Ursula; while Jamaican reggae musician Shaggy will voice the lovable red crab Sebastian and is expected to perform the film’s signature song, the Oscar-winning "Under the Sea."

According to Deadline, the hybrid format will combine intricate sets and costumes created for the special with music from the original animated film and the Tony Award-winning Broadway stage version, composed by eight-time Oscar-winner Alan Menken. Howard Ashman’s film lyrics will also be showcased, with Glenn Slater, lyricist for the Broadway adaptation, as a contributor.

Following her starring role in Moana, Cravalho performed the film’s popular song, "How Far I’ll Go," written by Lin Manuel Miranda at the Oscars and starred in the NBC musical drama series Rise. It was just announced that she is also the lead of the Brett Haley Netflix film Sorta Like a Rock Star, according to Deadline.

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TGIF FEATURE: Moana to be redubbed in Hawaiian

Disney introduced its first Pacific Islander 'preincess' in Moana.

ASAM NEWS

A HAWAIIAN LANGUAGE version of the Disney hit Moana will be given to every accredited school across Hawaii this Christmas, reports Hawaii News Now.

The University of Hawaii’s Academy for Creative Media worked on the project.

“This was an educational endeavor to encourage students to learn Olelo Hawaii and we are so grateful to our partners at Disney Animation and Disney Character Voices International for making this possible,” Academy for Creative Media Director and Founder, Chris Lee, said.

Auli'i Cfravalho will voice her role as Moana in the Hawaiian version of the animated Moana.

Actress and Native Hawaiian Auliʻi Cravalho reprised her starring role in the Hawaiian remake.

“I am so deeply proud of my Hawaiian roots,” Cravalho said to University of Hawaii News last year.. “To perform the role of Moana, acting and singing in the Hawaiian language, is so deeply humbling and exciting. I can’t wait to work with the talented language experts who will help bring this version to life.”
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Vanessa Hudgens given activist award at 2017 Teen Choice Awards

Filipina/American actress Vanessa Hudgens was given the #SeeHer Award (yes, it's a surfboard) at the 2017 Teen Choice Awards.

VANESSA HUDGENS was ill but you wouldn't know it at the 2017 Teen Choice Awards last night (Aug. 13) when she gave an inspirational speech when she received the #SeeHer Award.

The Filipina/American actress 28, was given the #SeeHer Award for "pushing boundaries, unchanging stereotypes and embodying the fight for realistic female portrayals in media."

"I'm not gonna lie, when I was 25, I felt like I had it all figured out," she confessed. "And then I woke up at 27 and I realized that I had no idea who I was, what I stood for, and what I wanted."

"I look back on that moment really grateful because it pushed me to dig deeper and figure out what type of woman I wanted to become."

She was given the award for her work for a number of charities including the Make A Wish Foundation and Habitat for Humanity.

Vanessa Hudgens, right, stepped out at the Women's March earlier this year.

In the past 18 months, she had to overcome the death of her father on the eve of her live performance of Grease. In one of those "the show-must-go-on moments," she powered on and her performance boosted her Hollywood profile and garnered her  an Emmy.

Her hosting of the 2017 Billboard Awards elevated Hudgens' visibility and showed off her ability to spar impromptu with the stars in the audience and stage.

For me, the small throwaway line in her cancelled TV show Powerless was perhaps the most important for some little Asian/American child who might have heard it on network TV. She said, "I'm half Filipino ..." The moment was no big deal, no inspirational music in the background, no dramatic pause, but it identified her as an Asian/American when so many actors never get a chance to proclaim their heritage. individuality, what makes them different.

That single seemingly insignificant line was empowering. 

Unlike some actors and actresses who choose to remain ambiguous about their ethnicity, Hudgens has never been shy about her mixed-race heritage. Her mother is Filipino. When she had the opportunity, she said it publicly, during a performance: "I'm half Filipino."

The actress ended her Teen Choice speech with a powerful message for her younger fans. "I think it is so important for us to lean into our individuality and to embrace our weirdness," she continued. "To not be afraid of being different, because God made you you for a reason. So know that in your heart, you are enough. And the more you lean into that, the brighter you will shine." Amen, to that!

Other AAPI performers honored in the show were:

• Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, "Fantasy Movie Actor" for his voice work for Maui in the animated Moana.
• Auli Carvalho, "Break Out Actress" for her voice work as the title role in Moana.

Listen to Hudgen's speech below:

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EDITOR'S NOTE:or additional commentary, news and views from an AAPI perspective, follow me on Twitter @DioknoEd.

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Auli'i Cravalho cast in lead role in TV pilot

Prior to the release of Moana, Auli'i Cravalho and her mother Puanani, were introduced to journalists and bloggers.

ASAM NEWS

FRESH OFF her impressive Oscar performance, 16-year-old Auli’i Cravalho of Moana fame has landed a lead role in the NBC pilot Drama High, reported Deadline.

Cravalho will play one of the students in the drama department of a working-class high school. They are inspired by a passionate teacher.

Drama High is executive produced by Friday Night Lights executive producer Jason Katims and the producer of the Broadway hit show, Hamilton, Jeffrey Seller. 

Interestingly, at the Oscars show, Cravalho sang the Oscar nominated song "How Far I’ll Go," which was both written and introduced by Hamilton star and creator, Lin-Manuel Miranda. 

Many thought her Oscar performance was a "star is born" moment for the Hawaii-born actress and singer. Cravalho kept her composure while singing despite being hit by a flag.

Oscars Best Song: Will 'Moana' upset 'La La Land?'

Don't miss the performance of Auli'i Cravalho singing "How Far I Go" from Moana.

THE ODDS ON favorite at this year's Academy Awards airing tonight (Feb. 26) is La La Land's "City of Stars" in the best song category but don't be surprised if the song from Moana pulls off an upset. 

Disney has brought out the big guns to give the song "How Far I'll Go" from Moana a chance against favorite "City of Stars." Award-winning song writer Lin-Manuel Miranda will be performing with the 16-year old Auli'i Cravalho, who did the voice and singing for the animated title character of the Disney film Moana.

During rehearsal, the fresh-faced vocal powerhouse surprised onlookers and earned a spontaneous standing ovation at the end of her performance.

While the performance will channel the island feel of Moana, the Hawaiian teenager thinks it will also transcend the film: “It’s distinctly Moana, and at the same time it’s something where people will think, ‘Wow, that is a stunning piece.’”

If his song wins, Miranda will be the youngest performer to win the trifecta of the Tony, the Grammy and the Oscar. He earned the Tony and Grammy for Broadway musical hit Hamilton, which he wrote and starred in.
Auli'i is of course rooting for “How Far I’ll Go” to go all the way and win for best original song -- “It’s such an exciting time for Lin-Manuel, he’s right there and has almost got that EGOT” -- but says she’s also a fan of “City of Stars,” and looks forward to hearing John Legend’s rendition. She also mentions that she's a fan of Sting (who will perform his song “The Empty Chair” from Jim: The James Foley Story and Justin Timberlake.

As she speaks, glimmers of her character Moana shine through -- her excitement and passion for all that lies ahead is evident in every word.

“I could have never imagined that at 16 years old I would be having such amazing experiences like this,” she says. “I’ve been able to travel around the world and really share what Moana is about. The moral of our story is figuring out who you are, and listening to that voice deep down inside you, and I have been able to connect to that so much. [Moana] has that call for more, and I think for everyone -- no matter if you’re a teenager like me or someone who is in the prime of their lives -- there’s always going to be that call.”

Awards season means the return of the Anna Awards

Best Picture goes to Rogue One: A Star Wars Story by casting three Asian actors in prominent roles. Above, the Rogue One crew didn't include a single white male (See below).

IT'S AWARDS SEASON for the entertainment industry and once again, Asian/Americans and Pacific Islanders have mostly been overlooked for the best known awards for the Oscars, Emmy's and Tony's. 

Hence, the Anna Awards returns for its third installment. The awards below are named after Anna May Wong, a pioneer Asian/American actress who - even back then in the start of the motion picture industry - was conscious of the stereotypes Hollywood was perpetuating with its portrayal of Asian men and women and turned down roles that would reinforce those stereotypes.

This is the third year of the awards given to the performances on stage, the silver screen and on television. The categories are whimsical ones that I just made up which I get to do since I'm judge, jury and the majority vote in determining who is deserving based on their performance in 2016.

Drumroll, please ...

From left: Donnie Yen, Jiang Wen and Riz Ahmed.

Best Asian/American motion picture
For this category, we had to stretch a bit because so few movies prominently feature AAPI characters. Even though they were not in the lead, three Asian/American actors formed the core rebel team in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. Donnie Yen, Jiang Wen and Riz Ahmed had key roles in the sci-fi storyline started by George Lucas. Outside of the fact they formed the majority of the rebel team -- they were were gay, bad ass and non-stereotypical. Although they were not the lead actors, they managed to lend unusual depth and conflict to their characters that we rarely see in these space swashbucklers. Rounding out the team of five was the lead character Jyn Ersois (British actress Felicity Jones) and Cassian Andor (Latino actor Diego Luna). A lesson to Hollywood: The fact there wasn't a white male among them did not hurt the box-office appeal as audiences flocked to the theaters to watch the latest installment of the Star Wars franchise.


Best Director

Taika Waititi on the set of The Hunt for the Wilderpeople.

Taika Waititi is a Maori whose offbeat sense of humor is well-known in his native New Zealand. He used that sense of humor with an overlay of poignancy to make a small film about human beings and relationships, The Hunt for the Wilderpeople. It is a movie that wasn't widely seen but it should be seen by any minority director who doesn't want to slip into the basketfull of ethnic stereotypes. His next film moves him from the small human drama category into the superhero realm of big budgets and big action. He'll direct Aquaman, starring fellow Polynesian actor Jason Mamoa (Game of Thrones), who is half-Hawaiian.

Best Actor
Dev Patel in the motion picture Lion. Dev was nominated for Best Supporting Actor in the Golden Globes, which he didn't win because of the super-strong competition and he faces the same hurdles for Best Supporting Actor in the Academy Awards. I wondered about those nominations because anyone seeing the movie can clearly see that Patel was the main actor and if we were to get strict with the rules, he should have been entered in the Best Actor category. The studio, seeing the competition in that category, thought he stood a better chance (albeit, a slim one) in the supporting actor category. 

Best Actress
Lucy Liu in the TV series Elementary. She plays a smart, sassy and deep Dr. Watson to the erratic Sherlock Holmes played by Johnny Lee Hammer. Liu could have just been just another sidekick, but her Watson holds her own against Holmes and the long-running show gives Liu and the show's writers the time to portray a character with a depth rarely given to any character played by an Asian. 

Best Breakout Performance
2016 was quite a year for Riz Ahmed with roles on TV and movies it seemed that the British actor was everywhere. But it was his role in The Night Of, where he starts out as a frightened victimized student who is transformed into a tough, prison-hardened tattooed character. For his performance, he was nominated for a Screen Actors Guild award and may still get an Emmy nod for making us believe in his character as a student and as an ex-con.

Bad-ass Woman of the Year
With the presidential campaigns in 2016, along with the surge of #OscarsSoWhite in the entertainment field, actress Constance Wu stepped up and said all the things we were thinking, even, some say, it might hurt her growing career beyond her Fresh Off the Boat success. She decried the practice of white-washing that saw non-Asian actress cast in obviously Asian roles such as Scarlett Johansson in the upcoming Ghost in a Shell motion picture and Tilda Swinton in the Dr. Strange film. She was in the thick of Hillary Clinton's failed campaign for President and joining the Women's March in Washington, D.C. She is currently in negotiations for the lead role in the all-Asian cast for Crazy Rich Asians directed by John Chu.



Bad-ass Man of the Year
You would have to come up with something really spectacular to give this to anybody but Daniel Wu for his portrayal of martial artist Sunny in Into the Badlands. The Berkeley-born actor made his fame in Asia and came back to this actioned that takes place in a future dystopian America where guns don't work so inhabitants have to resort to various forms of martial arts, swords and fisticuffs.


Best Fight Scene of the Year

It stands to reason that the best fight sequence involves one of our Bad-ass winners. Since Constance Wu won on the basis of her efforts off-camera, that means Daniel Wu (no relation to Constance) was involved. The opening sequence in the premiere of Into the Badlands has one of the best choreographed fights we've since in a long time. It's not quite the breathtaking fight between Michele Yeo's and Zhang Ziyi's characters in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon; or the  sword fight in Akira Kurosawa's Sanjuro when Toshiro Mifune's samurai character, Sanjuro, found himself surrounded by about a dozen other swordsmen; but, it's a really, really good fight for TV. Fight choreographer used a lot of the fantastic Kung Fu acrobatics that made him so much in demand in China and Hong Kong flicks.

Promising newcomer(s)
For the first time, we have a tie in this category with three new actors who bear watching. Brandon Perea who plays the smart student in Netflix's surprise sci-fi hit "The OA,"  is half-Puerto Rican and half-Filipino, but all American. His character is named French, who is smart, head on right, the kind of guy who could be voted Mr. Popularity on campus, everybody likes him. Despite all that could lead to being the stereotypical social snob, it turns out he's a nice, sensitive guy. He's a leader-type that doesn't have to show his abs. This unusual show kind of sneaked up on everybody and Bang!, everybody got hooked. It just got renewed for a second season.

Auli’i Cravalho, for her voice-over portrayal of Moana in the animated musical feature of the same name. We might never have seen her in person in the movie, but despite that, she gave a life and energy to the lead character who, in fact, did look a little like the Hawaiian-born actress. Look for her to sing the Oscar-nominated title song "How Far I'll Go," written by Hamilton's Lin Manuel Miranda, during the Academy Awards.

Hayden Szeto who played the unrequited love interest in the movie, Edge of 17, opposite Filipina/American Hailee Steinfeld. The role could just have been of any race but Szeto won over the director and producer. He avoided the nerdy stereotype and played his character as an all-American guy who has a crush on Hailee. Kudos to him and to the director to not succumbing to the way-too-easy portrayal of the stereotype.

Best Stage Performance
This was a tough one. There were some very good performances by a number of artists on stage this year but if I had to narrow it to just one, ... I can't ... this will have to be another tie for the duet of Darren Criss and Lena Hall for their roles in Hedwig and the Angry Inch musical traveling show. Both of the Asian/American performers received rave reviews for the lead roles in that musical about a transexual glam rocker. While Criss played the lead role most of the time, Hall had the next most important male role of Itzak, and at times, took over Criss' role during his days off. Honorable Mentions go to Daniel Dae Kim in the King and I, Ali Ewoldt in Phantom of the Opera and Philiippa Soo in Hamilton.

Best Portrayal of an Asian by a non-Asian

From left: Scarlett Johansson, Tilda Swinton and Matt Damon don't deserve this award.

Hmmm. Lots of nominations here including Scarlett Johansson as Major in Ghost In A Shell, Tilda Swinton as the Ancient One in Dr. Strange, one can even make an argument that Matt Damon's role in The Great Wall should have been an Asian savior. Problem is, none of them deserve the "best" anything so we're leaving this category empty.

Is She, or Isn't She?
This award goes to the actor who no one would have guessed was AAPI. This year's award goes to Sharon Leal, who at first glance one would perceive to be African/American, but, it turns out, she is half Filipino. She loves her Filipino food, adobo and dinaguan, cooked by her mother. Unfortunately, her role on the CW's Supergirl is that of a Martian (Filipinos from Mars?) so she won't be able to draw on her ethnic heritage for her character.


TV show missing an Asian cast member

Asians are too rare in a setting that should have more Asian staff  since Sandra Oh, 2nd from left, exited the show.

ABC's long-running Grey's Anatomy hasn't been the same since Sandra Oh's Dr. Christina Yang left the cast. Not only did a favorite character leave a void, any urban hospital in America always has a strong presence of Asian staff as med-techs, nurses and doctors. The show is set in Seattle with a large AAPI population but you wouldn't know that watching the show. Produced by Shonda Rhimes, who has been outspoken about diversity in casting, should have an Asian character in a recurring role beyond the masked surgical nurse in the operating room.

Best Musical Performance in the Super Bowl

Well, since there is only one Super Bowl per year, it's pretty obvious the award for 2016 goes, hands down, to Bruno Mars for his performance when he and his dancers faced off with Beyonce and her Formation army of women. Mars more than held his own as the trio belted out Mars' hit "Uptown Funk." The dance-off sequence between Mars' and Beyonce's dancers was a hair-raising thriller, perhaps equalling the gym sequence between the Jets and Sharks in West Side Story. Here's a replay incase you missed it the first time.

Best Stereotype Buster
Conrad Ricamora as Oliver Hampton in How To Get Away With Murder. Well, he is a computer expert, but that's not the stereotype we're talking about. Ricamora recently won the Visibility Award for his portrayal of a gay character. Oliver is an interesting and multi-dimensional LGBTQ person of color -- a great role for the actor but also great visibility for the Asian/American and LGBTQ communities. “I will say that it’s a little ironic to be getting the Visibility Award because so much of growing up as a kid was spent trying to be invisible,” said Ricamora. “It was rough, not only being gay, but having the colored skin that I have. I was terrified that someone would see me as gay and I was also terrified that I would see myself for what I naturally was.”

Best Farewell Performance
We would be remiss if we didn't mention Steven Yeun's portrayal of Glenn Rhee as played in TV's The Walking Dead. Glenn's brutal demise at the hands of Negan and his baseball bat Lucille, was one of the most shocking and dreadful end to one of television's best Asian/American characters. Through seven seasons, Yeun was able to transform Glenn from the pizza-delivery guy to a heroic zombie killer without ever resorting to anything that hinted at the Asian male stereotype. The character of Glenn was perhaps the best nuanced, AAPI characters television has ever presented.

RELATED:

• The first awards was called the Eddies
• The 2nd awards became the Anna's because the Eddies Awards were already taken

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