By J.K. YAMAMOTO
Rafu Shimpo
Amy Hill’s association with Disney’s “Lilo & Stitch” began more than two decades ago and has gotten bigger and better this year with the release of the live-action remake — the second-highest-grossing movie of 2025, surpassing $1 billion worldwide.
The Hawaii-based story of a lonely girl who is befriended by an alien fugitive was introduced in the 2002 animated feature “Lilo & Stitch,” in which Hill played Mrs. Hasegawa, an elderly, kind and sometimes forgetful fruit vendor.
Mrs. Hasegawa returned in eight episodes of “Lilo & Stitch: The Series” from 2003 to 2006. She adopts some alien experiments (similar to Stitch), thinking they are cats.
In one episode, Lao Shi (voiced by Keone Young), a character from another Disney series, “American Dragon: Jake Long,” falls in love with Mrs. Hasegawa.
“My fondest memories of working on the 2002 ‘Lilo & Stitch’ movie are pretty simple because I have no memory of doing it,” Hill said. “I was a single mom and I have very little memory of anything in the early 2000s.
“When ‘Lilo & Stitch’ was a series, I do recall going in and doing Mrs. Hasegawa, but also doing other characters as well. I did not have any input into the character other than making up Mrs. Hasegawa as I was doing it.”
She has a much more important role in the 2025 “Lilo & Stitch,” playing Tutu, the neighbor of Lilo (Maia Kealoha) and her older sister Nani (Sydney Elizebeth Agudong), who is Lilo’s legal guardian after the death of their parents.
“The character of Tutu was in the imagination of the writer, Chris Bright,” Hill recalled. “I was fortunate to fit into his perception of this character.”
The movie was a reunion for Hill and Tia Carrere, who was previously the voice of Nani. This time Carrere plays Mrs. Kekoa, a social worker who is concerned about Lilo’s welfare.
“This is the first time I’ve worked with Tia since doing the animation,” Hill said. “I did work with her on the movie with Sean Connery, ‘Rising Sun.’ However, we did not work at the same time, so this live-action film was the first time I actually worked with her side-by-side.”
In “Rising Sun” (1993), a murder mystery that also starred Wesley Snipes, Hill played Hsieh, a medical examiner, and Carrere played Jingo Asakuma, a computer expert.
Hill enjoyed working with her young “Lilo & Stitch” co-stars. “I was totally impressed with Maia because she had never done anything before. Just naturally talented and with a great attitude, very professional and always knew her lines.
“Sydney was very focused on her work and also creating a very natural chemistry with Maia. Both have long careers ahead of them.”
Of course, Stitch (voiced by Chris Sanders) was not actually there, but the cast had to act as if he was. Hill’s first scene with Stitch is at a dog shelter where Lilo decides to adopt him.
“Working with CGI is not my favorite thing to do, but if Maia could do it, so could I,” Hill said.
Hawaii Connection
After appearing as cafe owner Sue in another film set in Hawaii, “Fifty First Dates” (2004), a romantic comedy starring Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore, Hill was sometimes mistaken for a “local” and was asked which island she was from.
In fact, she was born in South Dakota and has lived in Seattle (where she was recently inducted into Franklin High School’s Hall of Fame), San Francisco (where she worked with Asian American Theater Company), and Los Angeles (where she has worked with East West Players and appeared in the stand-up special “Comedy InvAsian”).
The daughter of a Japanese immigrant mother and a Finnish American father, Hill has played a variety of ethnicities in addition to Japanese, including a Korean grandmother in Margaret Cho’s sitcom “All-American Girl,” a Chinese mother in “American Dad,” and a Filipina mother in “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend.”
From 2018 to 2024, she played Teuila “Kumu” Tuileta in 94 episodes of the “Magnum, P.I.” reboot. Her character was the cultural curator of Robin Masters’ estate and helped Thomas Magnum (Jay Hernandez) solve cases. The show enabled Hill to live in Hawaii while her daughter was attending college there.
“I’ve been living in Honolulu since ‘Magnum’ ended, but I still have a home in Los Angeles,” she said. “I often work in Los Angeles or New York or Vancouver or wherever work takes me.”
Her stage credits include a number of one-woman shows, including “Tokyo Bound,” which chronicled the years she lived in Japan. “My upcoming solo show is called ‘Amy 2.0’ and deals with aging — in a comedic manner. My generation, Baby Boomers, are going to take over the world.”
Hill is currently a regular on a new Amazon Prime show, “Ballard,” which is about an LAPD detective investigating cold cases.
“It stars Maggie Q, and I play her grandmother. It is a spinoff of a very popular series called ‘Bosch’, and it features Maggie as the lead. It’s really good and can be streamed on Amazon Prime right now.
“I’m also set to do the sequel for ‘Lilo & Stitch,’ which I’m very much looking forward to.”
“Lilo & Stitch” is playing in theaters and streaming on Disney+, Hulu and HBO Max.
Hill and actor/comedian Alec Mapa (“Doom Patrol,” “Grand Daddy Day Care”) recently appeared together on LAist’s radio quiz show “Go Fact Yourself” and will be reunited in “Hollywood/Kine,” a night of comedy, on Friday, Aug. 15, 8 p.m. at The Hawaiian Theatre, 1130 Bethel St., Honolulu. Hosted by Brook Mahealani Lee. Tickets: hawaiitheatre.com