Lea Salonga, H.E.R., Liza Soberano, and Manny Jacinto join voice cast of DreamWorks Animation’s ‘Forgotten Island’
DreamWorks Animation has announced that Lea Salonga, H.E.R., and Liza Soberano will be headlining the voice cast of animated film Forgotten Island due for a theatrical release next year. Manny Jacinto will be assuming a supporting role.
The comedy adventure film tells the story of longtime best friends Jo, voiced by H.E.R., and Raissa, voiced by Soberano, who find themselves stranded on a remote magical island called Nakali. The only way home, they discover, may involve having to forget each other and their friendship.
For Broadway star and Tony Award winner Salonga, this gig comes on the heels of her turn in the Netflix worldwide hit KPop Demon Hunters, where she voiced Celine, a retired demon hunter and mentor to current demon hunters Rumi, Mira, and Zoey.
Soberano, who has taken her career to Hollywood, was last seen on the big screen playing Taffy in the 2024 horror comedy Lisa Frankenstein.
R&B singer-songwriter-actress H.E.R., born as Gabriella Sarmiento Wilson in California to a Filipino mom and American dad, has numerous award-winning tracks and albums to her name. In 2024, she performed at the Super Bowl halftime show with Usher. Her stage name stands for Having Everything Revealed.
Manila-born Filipino-Canadian actor Manny Jacinto was in the Philippines last August to promote Disney’s Freakier Friday, where he plays Eric Reyes, the fiancé of Lindsay Lohan’s character Anna. He is best known for his recurring role as Jason Mendoza in the NBC comedy The Good Place.
Along with the four Filipinos in the Forgotten Island cast are Dave Franco and Jenny Slate. According to a report by The Hollywood Reporter, one of the co-directors and writers of the film, along with Joel Crawford, is Filipino-American Januel Mercado, who co-directed another DreamWorks Animation feature Puss in Boots: The Last Wish. Mercado based Forgotten Island on a Philippine mythological island.
Universal Pictures is set to release Forgotten Island theatrically on Sept. 25, 2026.
