Auli’i Cravalho Takes It To The Club

Auli’i Cravalho is straddling two very different worlds. On the one hand, the 23-year-old actor is finding time to promote Disney’s Moana 2 (out Nov. 27), in which she reprises her breakout role as the audacious, seafaring Disney princess. On the other, she’s in the midst of her debut Broadway run, starring as nightclub singer Sally Bowles in Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club.

“When I get pulled away into Moana world, it feels like a coming home,” she tells Bustle. “Then when I come back to Sally, I get to let my queer flag fly and be the performer that I have been longing to become.”

After years of playing to her youth in projects like Moana, The Power, and Mean Girls: The Musical, Cabaret represents a graduation of sorts for Cravalho. “I was really excited to take on Sally, who from the get, we’re not sure where she’s from,” she says. “It gives me much more freedom. I get to ask the question of, ‘When am I lying? When do I tell the truth? When do I bear my soul to the audience?’”

Though Sally may be elusive, she’s hardly unfamiliar. Since Jill Haworth originated the role in 1966, she’s been portrayed on stage and screen by the likes of Gayle Rankin, Liza Minnelli, Michelle Williams, and Emma Stone. But as the youngest actor — and the first of AAPI descent — to play Sally on Broadway, Cravalho has found a way to make the part her own, infusing the character with a sense of youthful hope and optimism. “She is someone who is trying to stay alive first and foremost, and then also someone who’s trying to be loved,” she says.

Cravalho tends to look on the bright side in her own life, too. While she admits that it’s “a lot” juggling seven shows a week as Sally with her Moana responsibilities, she still leads with gratitude. “We always say when it rains, it pours,” she says. “I know that work is seasonal for us, so there will be a time in the near future where I will have nothing and I’ll be like, ‘Damn, remember when I was busy?’”

Below, Cravalho dishes on her strangest stage door experiences, her dressing room staples, and how she finds time to relax during an exhausting day.

On her busy-day ritual:

If it’s a two-show day, I’ll have my partner stop by and bring me food, because even just leaving the theater sometimes feels like a journey. Having a sit-down lunch for an hour in my dressing room and talking about the show, and them being able to talk to other castmates as well, that feels nice.

On her pump-up playlist:

I use music all the time to get me into character, so I’ve created a Sally playlist. There's Florence + the Machine; Sofia Isella, a newer artist I found on Instagram; Soap&Skin’s song “Me and the Devil.” I’ve got just a bunch of spooky, creepy, powerful women-led music on there.

On her dressing-room decor:

I keep all of my gifts and notes — I either tape them or push-pin onto my wall. I sometimes forget when [I’m] in the daily grind that for someone coming to the theater for the first time, this is a spectacular performance. Seeing all the different notes before I head out that door is really helpful to keep the emotion feeling new, time and time again.

On giving autographs:

I’ve had people ask me to sign really bad photos of myself. Sometimes fan art of Moana makes me pause because I go, “You know that's not real, right? You know someone made that?” And then I’ve had people create something similar to a baseball card, with my name and an AI version of me, and ask me to sign that. I’m becoming a bit of a collector’s item, which is very strange as a 23-year-old.

On her theater superstitions:

I have my ring that my mom and I have both been wearing [at different times] for the last 12 years. I had to fight [my mom] tooth and nail [for it]. Listen, I recognize that Sally would not wear a gold ring because poverty, but this means a lot to me, so I don’t take it off. And this is strange, but I always paint my house door pink, so I’m in the process of painting my dressing room pink so that it feels more like home.

On audience reactions:

When I perform “Don’t Tell Mama,” there’s a little bending over section, and sometimes people go crazy. They see me on stage and go, “Oh, OK, bend over!” I’m like, “This is not that kind of cabaret. That’s in Vegas. This cabaret also includes Nazis.” You had one number where I was cutesy, baby doll, manic pixie dream girl. That’s it, baby girl. Buckle up.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.