The Big Picture

Collider’s Steve Weintraub sits down in Hawaii with
Moana 2
composers Abigail Barlow and Emily Bear of Barlow & Bear.
In the sequel, Moana sets her sails for a dangerous journey after a mysterious and unexpected call from her ancestors.
In this interview, the duo discusses the initial offer to work on the Disney+ series, pivoting to a feature film, challenging songs, unreleased numbers, and which tracks they’re most excited for fans to hear.

Not unlike the title heroine of Moana 2, the musical group known as Barlow & Bear is not only making waves in the industry but making history, too. Composers Abigail Barlow and Emily Bear, the Grammy Award-winning duo behind The Unofficial Bridgerton Musical, admit they were taken aback when the chance to write the soundtrack for a Disney+ series was first offered, but there was zero hesitation. “Say less,” Barlow quipped, launching them into an unforgettable adventure.

Ready to take on the raging seas with Moana (Auli’i Cravalho), Barlow and Bear set to work penning and composing the tracks that would help tell the story of Moana’s growth through a series of episodes “when words [weren’t] enough.” At some point throughout production, however, it was clear that Moana’s journey required a big-screen narrative, and Barlow & Bear pivoted, letting go of a few numbers and reshaping others.

In this interview with Collider’s Steve Weintraub, Barlow and Bear share their experience crafting the musical numbers of Motonui and why being the youngest composers to ever tackle a Disney feature actually made them the perfect duo to work on Moana 2. They reveal which songs they’re most excited for fans to hear, the writing process and overcoming the pressure, which song was the trickiest to pen, and which cut sequence from the movie they’d love for audiences to see someday.

Barlow & Bear Were Perfect for ‘Moana 2’: “We Could Really Step Into Her Shoes”
Image via Barlow and Bear

COLLIDER: First of all, so happy for you two being here in Hawaii doing songs from Moana 2 . Have you thought about playing the lottery soon?

EMILY BEAR: I think that would test our luck a little too much too soon.

ABIGAIL BARLOW: Yeah, it’s a dream, for sure.

I like throwing some curves at the beginning. Do you have a favorite Disneyland ride?

BEAR: Okay, so I just went to Disneyland, really, for the first time. We both loved — and I think I can speak for both of us — the Guardians of the Galaxy. So, so fun. And apparently, we had the best song.

BARLOW: Did we? Iconic. Yeah, it was great.

What was cooler, winning the Grammy for Best Musical Theater Album or getting the call to write songs for a Disney animated movie?

BEAR: That’s a mean question.

BARLOW: That’s a mean question, but getting the call was insane.

BEAR: I think so, too.

Image via Disney

What is that like? Is it someone from Disney calling you? Is it an agent?

BEAR: When you’re in the industry, you take general meetings all the time, which are just kind of a get-to-know-each-other sort of thing. We took a general with this guy, Tom MacDougall at Disney, and he lightly mentioned at the end of the meeting, saying, “Hey, I might have a project for you two.

BARLOW: “Stay tuned.” But you never really know if they mean what they say in those general meetings.

BEAR: If people had done half the things they promised us in meetings, we would be living on a beach somewhere in the middle of the Caribbean. [Laughs]

BARLOW: But he followed through, and about a year later, we got an email that said, “Hey, they’re making a Moana sequel. Would you like to speak with the creators and the creative team?” And we were like, “Say less.” We Zoomed with them and had a conversation about Moana’s journey in the second film, and it just felt like a really good fit. Emily was 20 at the time and Moana is 19 in this film, so we just felt like we could really step into her shoes, and we told them that, and I think they took a chance on us and gave us the job.

I know what you’re talking about with general meetings. I have a lot of friends who have done them, and inevitably, like, 99.9% of them don’t do anything.

BEAR: Right, so you can imagine our surprise. We’re like, “Oh! Cool!”

BARLOW: “Sick!” [Laughs]

This Musical Duo Can’t Wait for You to Hear These ‘Moana 2’ Tracks

You obviously wrote a bunch of songs for this. Which is a song that you really can’t wait for people to hear, or maybe they’ve already heard it?

BEAR: “Get Lost” I’m actually really excited about. Also, I know they released “Beyond,” but they released the end-credits version, and I’m really excited for them to hear the movie version.

BARLOW: It’s magical.

BEAR: I think it tugs a little differently.

100%. I agree with you. Before I forget, The Unofficial Bridgerton Musical soundtrack, if someone has actually never heard it before, what’s the song they start with, or should they just push play at the beginning?

BEAR: I honestly think you should just push play at the beginning, but “Every Inch?”

BARLOW: “Every Inch.” Or “Alone Together.”

BEAR: Or “Burn for You.”

BARLOW: Everyone knows that one.

Related ‘The Unofficial Bridgerton Musical’ Wins Grammy for Best Musical Theater Album Lady Whistledown would be most pleased.

What is it actually like when you are sitting down to write something that you know is going to be in a movie like this? Is it something where you just have to think about the song and forget about where it’s going?

BARLOW: Yeah. I think we really just wanted to serve the story as well as we possibly could. We don’t want to stop, drop, and sing. We want to sing when words aren’t enough because that helps us move the story along in an emotional way.

BEAR: Yeah. If you think too much about how many eyeballs are on it and who would be watching it, and, “It needs to be a hit, it needs to be whatever…” you’re going to drive yourself insane. It kind of stops the creative process because all you’re thinking about is, like, “Oh, well, people like this or people like that.” You’ve just got to write good music. If everyone in the room feels good about it, then you can start to think about that.

This Maui Moment Changed the Most From Series to Feature

Walt Disney Animation Studios

Which is the song that actually went through the most revisions, maybe started one way and ended another way?

BARLOW: “Can I Get a Chee Hoo?” — Maui’s song. We took a couple of swings at that song to get it right.

BEAR: But even before we were taking swings, when it was still a TV show, we had a whole song written that had already gone through all the revision processes. It was done, we were about to record it, and then the story kept evolving and changing, as it does in animation, and then all of a sudden, we realized that it needed to be a different moment, that the whole M.O. of the song shifted. So, then we’re like, “Okay, start over.” Then it took us a few times.

There’s a Chance We’ll Still Hear These Unreleased ‘Moana 2’ Songs
Image via Disney

From what I’ve understood, a lot of songs might have been recorded for when it was going to be a TV show, and they obviously did not get released. Is there going to be an unreleased Moana soundtrack? Are there songs coming?

BEAR: It’s a little bit out of our hands.

BARLOW: We hope so!

BEAR: There’s one or two songs that we would love to see the light of day because they’re near and dear to our hearts.

Yeah, I’m getting the vibe that they’re thinking about it. Why wouldn’t you release that?

BEAR: Right. There’s a sequence that’s actually almost fully animated that is no longer in the movie that’s a song. So, they were maybe thinking… We’ll see.

Can I ask what the song was?

BARLOW: It was called “Two Pieces of Me.”

BEAR: Or “Two Pieces.” We didn’t get that far! [Laughs]

BARLOW: But it was kind of in the place where “Beyond” is now. Ultimately, the story had changed so much that it didn’t really make sense anymore.

BEAR: The issue was, she was like, “Oh, I don’t know what to do, I don’t know what to do.” And everyone’s like, “We know what she’s going to do. She’s gonna go.”

BARLOW: Right, so what’s the point of singing the song?

Image via Disney

No, I completely get that. What actually surprised you about making an animated show/movie? Because this is your first time on this experience.

BARLOW: Just how much of a classroom life became. They would have these huge brain trust meetings after a screening, and we would sit there for, like, an hour and a half to two hours just talking about the story, putting it together, ripping it apart. And just the learning process of seeing just how much everyone at Disney Animation cares about this process. It is truly sacred, and it was a dream to be a part of.

BEAR: I wasn’t expecting the amount of layers that it takes. I don’t even have the words because it’s still magic to me. In the animation alone, it goes for, like, 50 different steps before it gets to the final product, and the same thing in music. Because it all has to kind of crawl slowly together, you really get to pick apart layers a bit, like, “Okay, we’re doing this step, we’re doing the next step,” and it’s all happening quickly. You don’t really have that much time to go back and change and move around and this and that. But because the steps are going so slowly, there’s just a lot of moving around.

Moana 2 splashes into theaters on November 27.

After receiving an unexpected call from her wayfinding ancestors, Moana must journey to the far seas of Oceania and into dangerous, long-lost waters for an adventure unlike anything she’s ever faced.Director David G. Derrick Jr. , Jason Hand , Dana Ledoux Miller Cast Auli’i Cravalho , Dwayne Johnson , Alan Tudyk , Rachel House , Temuera Morrison , Nicole Scherzinger , Hualālai Chung , David Fane , Rose Matafeo , Awhimai Fraser , Gerald Ramsey , Khaleesi Lambert-Tsuda Runtime 100 Minutes Writers Dana Ledoux Miller , Jared Bush , Jason Hand , Ron Clements , John Musker Studio(s) Walt Disney Pictures , Walt Disney Animation Studios Franchise(s) Disney Expand

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