Tia Carrere

There is a world where Tia Carrere did an episode of Baywatch instead of Wayne’s World. I strongly suspect that world misses her as Nani in Lilo & Stitch, too. I don’t like it. I already feel as though she hasn’t gotten enough good roles since then. She’s done practically nothing I care about except the Lilo & Stitch remake, which I care about but not in a good way. There could be so many great roles for her; at bare minimum, she’s shown that she would be great at voice acting if people would hire her. Gosh, I can’t imagine why they don’t.

She was born in Honolulu of Chinese and Flipino descent. She wanted to be a singer. She didn’t make it big on Star Search, but she was spotted in a Waikiki grocery store and hired for the movie Aloha Summer. The movie was not a hit. Still, Carrere launched an acting career. She was on an episode of Airwolf. She was on thirty-two episodes of General Hospital. Honestly, the timeline of this is confused between Wikipedia and IMDb, if you want my opinion, and I don’t know how much of any of this is accurate. Still, she was doing good character work—I didn’t see it at the time, but she did a Quantum Leap where she’s important to the ongoing plot stuff.

And then, yes, she was Cassandra. And what I love about the character of Cassandra is that she’s actually got a personality. She’s sexy, sure. And she’s the love interest. But she’s shown being smart and talented and determined. She’s doing her best to make a go of things. She’s not inclined to but up with Wayne’s crap, and she’s certainly not falling down at Wayne’s feet just because he has a popular cable access show. It’s cable access. She’ll take the added connections, because the music business is tough, but she’s not going to suck up to anyone.

1999 brought Relic Hunter, a Tomb Raider ripoff which lasted three seasons. Which was followed by Lilo & Stitch. The older I get, the more sympathy I have for Nani. Carrere may have been old enough to be Lilo’s mother, but Nani was not. Nani was thrust into a situation that was way over her head. She loves Lilo more than she loves anyone else on Earth, but she had no support and was herself grieving for her dead parents and the situation is just not one she’s ready for. Carrere captures that characterization so beautifully, and her performance isn’t talked about often enough.

Not only has there not been another Cassandra or Nani, there hasn’t even been another Dr. Sydney Fox, and you don’t know if I’m telling you the truth that it’s her character name from Relic Hunter. You haven’t seen it, and if you have, you don’t remember. Tia Carrere probably barely remembers. Why would you? But it’s depressing to think what roles she could’ve done in that time. If only she’d been cast in better things. But other than a song on the Mask of the Phantasm soundtrack (really), she hasn’t even gotten more of a music career. It’s unjust.