'Lilo & Stitch' stars Maia Kealoha, Sydney Agudong on the power of ohana

"Lilo & Stitch" stars Maia Kealoha and Sydney Agudong may play onscreen siblings, but off screen, they say they've become sisters as well.

The duo, who portray Lilo and Nani Pelekai, respectively, in the highly anticipated reimagined live action version of the iconic 2002 Disney animated film, said they built a special bond as sisters in the film, but also in real life.

"I think we both felt a very special bond," Agudong, 24, told "Good Morning America." "We just loved each other, which was really huge."

Maia, 8, added, "There's nothing that we don't like about each other. As soon as we met, we felt like, 'Oh my gosh, is she my long lost sister?"

Like the animated film, the updated 2025 movie centers around Lilo and Nani. When audiences are introduced to the sisters, they learn their parents died in a car accident and that Nani subsequently became Lilo's legal guardian. Nani struggles to take care of Lilo and is faced with losing her to foster care if their living situation doesn't improve.

When Nani overhears Lilo wishing for a friend, she lets her sister adopt a dog. The dog happens to be Stitch, an alien from planet Turo, who crash lands into Earth and impersonates a dog to escape those after him, including Pleakley, an Earth "expert," and Jumba, the mad scientist who created him.

At its core, the film centers around the importance of ohana, a Hawaiian term meaning family, and that family means "nobody gets left behind or forgotten."

Director Dean Fleischer Camp said that he wanted to stay faithful to the original film's message but also deepen the sisters' stories in the new film, particularly Nani's.

"I felt like it was something we worked on with Chris (Bright), our screenwriter, sort of developing that a little bit more, developing what Nani would be going through and making it a little bit more of two hander," Camp said.

He continued, "I felt like someone like Nani, who has all these hopes and dreams, and she's whip-smart and has all this stuff going for her, would probably have a little bit of a harder time believing nobody gets left behind, given that she just had this incredible tragedy befall their family."

"So I wanted to kind of make that belief in ohana, or sort of the cynicism that Nani might be feeling in that moment, I wanted to make that a little bit more of a conversation with Lilo and Nani, kind of representing both sides of it, and then find a harmonious solution to it by the end," he added.

In the new film, ohana isn't just defined by the ones who share the same DNA, it's also the chosen family that surrounds and uplifts you.

Producer Jonathan Eirich said they introduced several new characters, specifically Tūtū (Amy Hill), a close neighbor watching out for the Pelekai sisters, whom he describes as an "extended part of the ohana in this movie."

Eirich added that Bright, the film's co-screenwriter, who is from Hawaii, spoke about how Hawaiians value community and lending a helping hand to those who have lost everything.

"He sort of felt like, if these two sisters lost their family, there would be people that would reach out," Eirich said. "There would be support."

Agudong said she felt a sense of kuleana -- a Hawaiian term that means a responsibility to care for one's land and community -- while making the film.

"Throughout the making of this film, it allowed me to kind of really take into account how much of the Hawaiian community puts an emphasis on kuleana and family and ohana in that sort of way," she said.

While the animated version doesn't explore Nani's feelings as an older sister, the live action film presents the struggles Nani faces following the deaths of her parents and juggling the role of sister and legal guardian.

"Nani's struggle is more that she just feels like this burden that she has to prove she can do it all on her own ... By the end, she's sort of more willing to accept help from the community," Eirich said.

When it came to casting Nani and Lilo, Camp said chemistry was the most important part, and that Agudong and Maia had that.

"They have an undeniable sisterly chemistry," he said. "When we read Maia with Sydney, it was just so clear from the jump that these two had a spark, and they felt like sisters immediately, and that only continued to grow and deepen."

He added, "There were so many times on set when they would be doing something that is so sisterly that I wanted to turn on the camera and film it."

Agudong affirmed Camp's observation about the duo's chemistry and said her connection with Maia was instant.

"I think our guards kind of dropped immediately, which was crazy," she said. "And it doesn't always happen, especially for the fact that this was [Maia's] first ever movie."

She said Maia "inspired" her to bring out her personality "more so and quickly especially in a daunting environment like set."

"She's a ham," Agudong added.

"And I am delicious," Maia joked.

In addition to Maia and Agudong, the new film stars Zach Galifianakis, Tia Carrere, Billy Magnussen, Kaipo Dudoit and Courtney B. Vance.

Chris Sanders, who voiced Stitch in the original film and throughout the "Lilo & Stitch" franchise, returns as Stitch in the live action movie.

"Lilo & Stitch" surfs into theaters May 23.

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