How 24-year-old 'Moana' star Auli'i Cravalho deals with career setbacks: 'When there's a drought, pivot'

Auli’i Cravalho is just 24, but she’s already a decade into her career, and she’s shifted in her profession many times over.

Cravalho made her Hollywood debut voicing the titular “Moana,” released in 2016, and has since made her mark in other movies like 2024′s “Mean Girls,” in TV roles and on Broadway in the role of Sally Bowles in “Cabaret.”

But she hasn’t always gotten the roles she’s wanted most.

“The best way for me to get through that is one: time, and two: recognizing that the young woman who gets that role is just like me, very different from me, but just like me,” Cravalho told CNBC Make It at ZCON, a Gen Z focused conference put on by United Talent Agency.

“How can I be upset at a girl who has worked her behind off to get exactly where she’s meant to be?” she added. “And if it isn’t meant to be for me, so be it, and I have to let it go.”