Directors of the hit animated film “Lilo & Stitch” shared a touching tribute to late star Daveigh Chase, who tragically died this week after battling drug addiction and homelessness on Skid Row.
Chris Sanders and co-director Dean DeBlois posted an illustration on Instagram showing the character Lilo, who was voiced by Chase, wiping a tear from his eye while feeding a fish peanut butter sandwich.
In the 2002 movie, Lilo gave the fish, Pudge, a sandwich as she dealt with the death of her parents.
The image, which was shared without a caption, featured both of the directors’ signatures and appeared to be their first public comment on Chase’s death.
The pair said that they struggled to find the voice of Lilo before Chase arrived and made their decision easy.
“That was a very, very difficult voice to cast… And one day this girl came in, and her name was Daveigh Chase,” Sanders told Hawaii Public Radio in 2022. “She sat at the microphone, and she started doing her thing. Dean and I looked at each other, and we knew we had found her.”
Chase died on Tuesday at just 35 years old after spiraling into addiction and homelessness.
A video taken months before her death showed her sprawled out on the floor of a tent in Skid Row, looking severely underweight. An outreach advocate told The California Post he witnessed her grow thinner and thinner every time he saw her.
By the time she went to the hospital in the days before her death, she weighed as little as 75 pounds, TMZ reported.
Her manager, John Ryan, said that he tried to track down Chase as she battled addiction, but couldn’t locate her until it was too late.
“We were so close to finding her,” he told The Post. “Daveigh was the sweetest and brightest light in Hollywood. I can’t believe this is real. Her legacy and work will live on forever.”
Chase’s big break came in “Lilo & Stitch,” which spawned a franchise including a live-action remake of the original film released in 2025.
Chase also portrayed Samara Morgan in the hit 2002 movie “The Ring” and appeared in the HBO series “Big Love.” Her last roles came in 2016 in the thriller “American Romance” and the psychological horror film “Jack Goes Home.”
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