Daveigh Chase, the voice actress behind Lilo in Disney's "Lilo & Stitch" and the terrified protagonist of Gore Verbinski's "The Ring," has died. Chase built a distinctive career across horror, animation, and prestige cinema during the 2000s, becoming one of the era's most recognizable young performers.
Chase voiced Lilo Pelekai across "Lilo & Stitch" (2002) and its sequel "Lilo & Stitch 2: Stitch Has a Glitch" (2005), anchoring Disney's quirky Hawaiian-set animated hit with distinctive comic timing. The franchise became a cultural touchstone, spawning multiple spin-offs and cementing Chase's place in the studio's voice-acting canon alongside actors like Chris Sanders, who voiced Stitch.
Her live-action work proved equally impactful. Chase played Samara Morgan's adopted daughter Rachel Wheeller in "The Ring" (2002), the Gore Verbinski remake that launched the J-horror boom in American multiplexes. That performance helped establish her as a fixture in prestige horror during an era when the genre attracted serious directorial talent and A-list casts.
Between live-action and animation, Chase also worked on English-language versions of Studio Ghibli films, contributing to translations of the legendary Japanese animation studio's work for Western audiences. This work placed her at the intersection of animation fandom and mainstream entertainment during a pivotal moment when anime and anime-adjacent storytelling began penetrating broader American consciousness.
Chase's ten-year stretch from 2000 to 2010 positioned her as a defining voice of that era's pop culture. She worked across three distinct entertainment sectors. horror cinema during its reinvention, Disney's animation division at peak cultural influence, and the international anime pipeline as