Auli’i, who’s of Native Hawaiian, Puerto Rican, Portuguese, Chinese language, and Irish descent, revealed in a 2022 interview that she was described by casting professionals in Hollywood as “racially ambiguous.” She stated, “Individuals did not know my face, and when casting did see my face, they’d say, ‘You are racially ambiguous.’ I’m like, ‘That is a brand new time period. I’ve by no means heard that one earlier than,’ which left me much more internally confused as a result of my identification has all the time been Hawaiian.”
“All of a sudden, all of those phrases had been thrust at me: ‘Effectively, you are white-passing, however you are additionally racially ambiguous, so you may play Latinx, you may play Asian, you may play all of those various things.’ I used to be like, ‘I simply wish to play sensible girls. The bar is there,’” the Moana star added.
