Moana: Nicole Scherzinger, Alan Tudyk join voice cast

Disney’s latest animated adventure will hit theaters later this year, and we’ve already met our heroine Moana (voiced by Hawaiian teenager Auli’i Cravalho) and her demigod companion Maui (Dwayne Johnson), who set out together to sail across the ocean in search of a mysterious long-lost island. Now, Disney has just revealed a first look at the other colorful characters Moana will meet along the way.

The film’s supporting cast (first seen via USA Today) includes her overprotective father, Chief Tui, her sympathetic mother, Sina, and her elderly grandmother Tala. Temuera Morrison voices Tui, who serves as the chief of Motunui Island, while Nicole Scherzinger plays Sina. Moana’s grandmother, Gramma Tala, is voiced by Rachel House and is described as “kind of the village crazy lady” who, like her granddaughter, loves everything about the ocean.

There are also a few new non-human characters, including Tamatoa, “a comically villainous 50-foot crab from Lalotai, the realm of monsters.” Jemaine Clement voices Tamatoa, who’s currently in posession of Maui’s beloved fish hook, much to Maui’s irritation. Alan Tudyk also voices a rooster named Heihei, who doesn’t actually have any intelligible lines, and who co-director Ron Clements describes to USA Today as “stupider than most chickens you have met.”

“I am playing a rooster in [Moana],” Tudyk wrote on Twitter. “My lines are ba-cock, bock, byocockawk, and others I will reveal in time.”

Finally, Disney also introduced the non-speaking but extremely adorable pig Pua, who’s Moana’s best friend.

At San Diego Comic-Con this weekend, Clements and his co-director John Musker spoke a little about the story of Moana, which is set 2,000 years ago in the South Pacific. They also revealed that Moana doesn’t have a love interest in the film, explaining that this is a story that’s more about her own adventures and her quest to find herself. Read EW’s recap of the panel here.

Moana will hit theaters on Nov. 23.