No. 1 UCLA women’s basketball will put preparation to the testa23 poker game 。

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Warning: Massive Moana 2 spoilers ahead! Dana Ledoux Miller is booked and busy! The Moana 2 director and Moana live-action remake writer took the time to talk with BuzzFeed about behind-the-scenes moments in the recording booth, Pacific Islander representation, and Moana's new tattoo. But honestly, it turned into a beautiful chat between two Samoan women, and I left the interview feeling like we were old friends! 1. How does it feel to be the first Pacific Islander woman to direct not only a Disney film but any major motion picture? Especially now that Moana has broken so many records at the box office? Dana Ledoux Miller: It's a little surreal. I'm so grateful that the film is doing well and people are watching it, and that it's resonating with so many Pacific Islanders. But also, it's really exciting to me that I do get to stand in this place and just by being here, in this moment, show people what's possible. Show other Pacific Islander women, people across anywhere, that if — I mean honestly — if I can do it, you can do it, too. It's been a really special thing and a responsibility that I don't take lightly because nobody can say it hasn't been done before. That can't be an excuse as to why you don't hire a Pacific Islander woman to write and direct a studio film because it has been done before. So now, let's let somebody else do it, too. 2. Do you have a favorite behind-the-scenes moment from working with the actors in the recording booth for Moana 2 ? Working with Auli’i [Cravalho] and Dwayne [Johnson] was really special. I assume you never know what it's going to be like coming into a role that you've already played and coming back after eight years to jump into this. But I was so impressed by both of them, the way they were able to just find these characters again, but also find new depths to them. And Auli’i is just hilarious in the booth. She's so physical and so just on point. The first day I was in the recording session with her, we were talking outside, and then she walked in, and it was like, “Oh, crap, that's Moana!” Just on and amazing. 3. Do you have a favorite moment with Dwayne? We have this moment later in the film where Maui is stripped of all of his crutches. He's lost his tattoos, he's lost his hook, he's lost his power, and he's vulnerable in a way that he's never been before. And he's grieving a loss. [Writer] Jared Bush and I were talking through what that means to be so strong and to be somebody who, in theory, doesn't need anyone, but suddenly be taken to your knees and vulnerable in a way you've never been before, and having to ask for help in a way you've never been before. What does that look like when you are larger than life? To talk that through with Dwayne, who is larger than life in so many ways and doesn't often get to go to these places emotionally as an actor, was really exciting. 4. In previous interviews, you’ve spoken about how growing up as a mixed Samoan woman in California, away from most of your family, impacted your confidence. As a fellow mixed Samoan woman who grew up the same way, I was wondering where you found that confidence to be able to write and direct these movies because I think sometimes we feel like, "Oh no, I'm not Samoan enough.” That is a sentence I am very familiar with: “I'm not Samoan enough.” Half my dad's family lived in Northern California — I'm in Southern California — or back in Samoa, and so there was really a disconnect. Part of that honestly was because of my dad, too, and him dealing with some of his own identity issues as I was growing up. And so, I felt a lot of insecurity about that. I would say being Samoan is always something I've been really proud of, but it's something I always mentioned with caveats, to try to make other people feel better about it, but also to make myself feel better. Like, “I'm Samoan, but yeah, I know I don't look so Samoan,” to make it feel okay for everybody else. I'm not joking, I used to have a picture of my grandparents in my bag when I was really young. BuzzFeed: So you could whip it out as proof? Yeah, as if I needed it! Nobody's even asking me for proof. But I felt so insecure about it. I don't know that I'm a fully-recovered insecure afakasi [mixed Samoan] woman, but I have come a long way. Even taking the job on the Moana live-action, which was my first Moana project, my first thought after getting that job was: “Am I Samoan enough? Is our community going to be upset that I'm the person doing this? Will they think I'm not enough to do this?” And it was very daunting. I was so excited because I love Moana, and I felt like I couldn't believe I get to be a part of telling her story. But it's been a process to take ownership of even just being able to be say, “I'm Samoan. I'm not gonna explain to you what that means because it's none of your business, and I know who I am.” That I would say has been a two-year process. It's still new to me. It's still fresh. But part of that is because I took some chances I wasn't ready to take. I took the job on the live-action film even though I felt that insecurity. I started PEAK [Pasifika Entertainment Advancement Komiti] when I was like, “Am I enough to do this? Am I the right person?” I also had a Pacific Islander writers room for this small show that didn't end up going, and I got to work with Pacific Islanders in a room, creating, for the first time. All of these things came together at once, and I started to feel like I was a part of a bigger community. And it wasn't a community that was asking me to qualify myself but of other people who felt very similarly. We were coming together, and we were looking at each other, and we're like, “Oh, I see you. I see you. I see you.” And because we were seeing ourselves in each other, it gave me more confidence to be bold about taking ownership of who I am. It's been a journey, but I am proud to be Samoan. 5. When Moana breaks Nalo’s curse, she dies and comes back only due to the power of the ancestors. This was such a powerful message about how our ancestors are still with us today and can always be called upon in times of need. Can you speak about the decision to include this? The first film did such a great job of setting that up with Gramma Tala. And I would say that Dave Derrick, the other Samoan director of the film, he very early on had this image in his mind of a whale shark as an ancestor coming in and meeting Moana. It's an image that is in the film, and it all just grew from there. This idea that our ancestors are always with us — they are always guiding us, and we are continuing their story. It just felt right for this. But when it came to that moment in particular at the end, it goes back to what we were talking about with Maui, this idea that he has no resources to solve this problem. He can't save Moana, and so he has to do something he's never done before, which is call out to the gods and call out to the ancestors and admit that he needs help. And I think [composer] Opetaia Foa'i did such a beautiful job of creating this chant in Samoan for Maui to sing, and then it's really just a call to make things right. And so, it felt natural that if he's calling for help, that the ancestors would come. I loved the moment Tautai Vasa comes in because he doesn't know what's going to happen. It's not like they're omniscient and the ancestors know that by showing up, she's going to come back to life. It's that he's been called, and now he's seeing this young woman who he sent off on this journey. He called her to action, and here she is. This is the consequence of that. To see him also calling out for help, and then see everyone come together, the ocean, the ancestors, all this power coming together to bring her back as a demigod... It just felt right for this world and for her journey, for a young woman who's given so much. It all built on each other into something that I'm really proud of. 6. The film very much seemed like it was setting us up for a third Moana movie. If that happens, do you think Moana would have any cool demigod powers? If there was a next movie, and I have no idea, I would be very excited to see what powers she had. I think that this film definitely sets up the potential for that. She's even got her own demigod color; she glows a little different than Maui. So I assume that she has some different abilities. But what that might be, I have no idea. 7. And the scene after that, we get some Melanesian and Micronesian rep! How important was it to ensure their inclusion in the movie? We built a bunch of different canoes, and we were so fortunate to have experts from across the Pacific really homing in on those designs. That was by design, to make sure that each place was different because she's connecting the whole ocean. There's so much misunderstanding about what it means to be from the Pacific. Generally, they assume that we're only Polynesian and that we're not all these other things. The fact that Moana connecting the ocean could literally connect her to these other places across the Pacific and show new technology in these canoes and people who look a little different but are also of the ocean just felt right. I did not anticipate the reaction to that from our communities — people are pumped! 8. What advice would you give to any aspiring Pacific Islander creatives? One thing that I try to tell young writers, specifically filmmakers, is that your very specific lens into the world, no matter who you are, is your superpower. Whether you're mixed Samoan like me, or you are someone who grew up in Savai'i, or Tonga, or you're from Fiji, anywhere you're from — only you see the world in your very specific way, and that is your gift and your power. So when you're telling stories, it's really important that you don't try to shift that lens to emulate someone else's vision of the world, especially when you're writing your first sample or making your first film. It's that kind of specificity of vision and experience that, to me, is what breaks through the noise of everything else. When you do that, it helps the rest of us find the commonalities we have between us because you're telling a very specific story. You're not watering it down to something that you think someone from the outside is going to feel is more palatable. You're taking ownership of exactly who you are, and that helps me, as an audience, understand you and relate to you in a different way. I think there's sometimes a tendency to want to write what Hollywood wants you to write. But the thing is — if this is the work you want to do, and you want to get into this business — you also have to hone your craft. I have met a lot of Pacific Islanders who are excited about this idea of working in the industry, but there is maybe a lack of understanding, there is a lack of infrastructure for our community often, to get into filmmaking. But if you want to work at this level, you have to be really diligent about it. If you want to be a writer, you have to study the craft and write at the level that everyone else in the world is in order to tell those stories. That's how you build a career and create staying power. So it's kind of two-fold. You gotta play the game a little bit. You gotta understand the work and then tell it from your lens. 9. What made you most emotional or excited throughout this process? There are moments within the movie that get me sometimes. Like the Maui-Moana moment, it makes me emotional, and I'm proud of what we crafted. But also, I just feel like, as a writer, to take characters that we know and love to a new place is always really exciting. 10. Aside from Auli'i and Dwayne, who else did you have fun working with? Jemaine [Clement] came in to do Tamatoa. I am a huge Flight of the Conchords fan. Eagle vs Shark is one of my favorite films. It's one of his early films, and it's so weird. And I was like, "That's the kind of movie I'm gonna make!" I'm not as funny as him, so I haven't made a movie like that. But my heart was so full. I could listen to this man riff forever. It was pretty awesome. BuzzFeed: That’s so funny because he only shows up in the post-credits scene, right? We kept him a little longer, just to really let him go off for our own benefit. Don't tell him that. [Laughs] 11. I was super emotional throughout the film, and I’ve seen TikToks of people literally crying in the theater because they’re so happy to be represented. How do you feel about the movie’s reception? I have been blown away. The number of texts and emails I've been getting from people, from other Pasifika folks, has been a little overwhelming but in a good way. This morning, one of our consultants who lives in Apia was like, “Here's our schedule for the movie theater. It's playing every single day, and the lines are down the street.” Or my brother texted me and was like, “My friend just said he's been trying to get him and his son tickets to the movie in Tutuila, but it's been sold out for days. You can't get in.” People are stoked. A cousin's cousin sent me their aunty’s Instagram post about how the ‘ava ceremony meant something to them, or about the tatau or the idea of the ancestors, or this idea that we are all connected and that we are better together, and that people don't understand that community is our foundation, and that's who we are. There's been so many instances of people from our community loving the film. I want everyone to see this movie, we made a movie for everyone to see, but I wanted our people to see themselves, and so the fact that that's happening kind of makes me a little teary right now, actually. I was hoping that we could all hold our heads up high and be proud to see ourselves like this. [Visibly tears up] To see that happening, and to see TikTok and Instagram blowing up about people being like, "This is who I am." That means something. That changes the way we see ourselves, that's going to give somebody else confidence out there to say, "This is who I am. I am not going to apologize for it. I get to be proud of who I am." 12. How do you think the film changes the perception and awareness of Pacific Islanders? It's changing the way other people are seeing us. I saw something where somebody had never understood that Melanesian people are part of the Pacific. That's somebody learning something that they didn't know about us before. So it's really special to be able to be a part of something that's reaching people on so many different levels. 13. And finally, I loved so many of the cultural details woven into the movie , but Moana's tattoo is probably my favorite. From what I know about the meanings of the symbols, it looked like vaetuli, the footprints of the tuli bird, going up her fingers. And then it looked like the fetū, the stars, on top. And so the way that I interpreted it was that her path is to follow the stars, and I wanted to ask if that's accurate. It was all by design. So we had Peter Suluape as our consultant in the tatau form. No big deal! Maui's tattoos tell his story, and if she's going to become a demigod, we wanted her tattoos to tell her story but in a very specific way. With Maui, there's so many tattoos that tell so many stories. We wanted her tattoo to tell this story of her reconnecting all the people of the ocean. So that's why it has Motofetū in the middle, the island, and everything coming off are the channels that connect it. And so we talked to him about that, and he came back with a design. And then we worked with our character designer, Danny Arriaga, who took all of those pieces and put it together in something that worked on her arm. Another Samoan consultant we had, Dionne Fonoti, texted me after she saw that. She was like, "Sis, I love the tattoo." And I was like, "Yes! If Dionne likes it, then we're okay!" I love it because it’s so specific to Moana and her story, but it's also so specific to us and what she would actually get, and I'm glad you recognized that. A big thank you to Dana for taking the time to chat with us! And be sure to check out Moana 2 , in theaters now! Note: This interview was edited for length and clarity.Super Micro Computer gets extension to file delayed annual report

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NEW YORK — The man accused of shooting and killing the CEO of UnitedHealthcare pleaded not guilty Monday to state murder and terror charges while his attorney complained that comments coming from New York’s mayor would make it tough to receive a fair trial. Luigi Mangione, 26, was shackled and seated in a Manhattan court when he leaned over to a microphone to enter his plea. The Manhattan district attorney charged him last week with multiple counts of murder, including murder as an act of terrorism. Mangione’s initial appearance in New York’s state trial court was preempted by federal prosecutors bringing their own charges over the shooting. The federal charges could carry the possibility of the death penalty, while the maximum sentence for the state charges is life in prison without parole. Prosecutors say the two cases will proceed on parallel tracks, with the state charges expected to go to trial first. One of Mangione’s attorneys told a judge that government officials, including New York Mayor Eric Adams, turned Mangione into a political pawn, robbing him of his rights as a defendant and tainting the jury pool. “I am very concerned about my client’s right to a fair trial,” Karen Friedman Agnifilo said. Adams and Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch stood among a throng of heavily armed officers Thursday when Mangione was flown to a Manhattan heliport and escorted up a pier after being extradited from Pennsylvania. Friedman Agnifilo said police turned Mangione’s return to New York into a choreographed spectacle. Adams is himself scheduled to stand trial on federal corruption charges next year. He pleaded not guilty and vowed to remain in office as he fights the charges. Authorities say Mangione gunned down Brian Thompson as he was walking to an investor conference in midtown Manhattan on the morning of Dec 4. Mangione was arrested in a Pennsylvania McDonald’s after a five-day search, carrying a gun that matched the one used in the shooting and a fake ID, police said. Mangione is being held in a Brooklyn federal jail alongside several other high-profile defendants, including Sean “Diddy” Combs and Sam Bankman-Fried. Get local news delivered to your inbox!