Daveigh Chase shared that she wanted to change people’s lives, years before her tragic death at age 35.
“I just want to make something that I love and people will respect,” the “Lilo & Stitch” voice actress told Interview magazine back in 2009.
“I want to do things that will change someone’s life, not something they’ll forget about tomorrow.”
She also shared during the brief interview that it was a stroke of bad luck that landed her in Hollywood in the first place — her mother had been injured in a car accident in 1998 in Los Angeles, and been told she couldn’t drive for six months.
So instead of returning home to Albany, Oregon after their road trip, she began pursuing her dream of acting at the age of 8.
She ultimately landed roles including the voice of Lilo in Disney’s beloved animated film “Lilo & Stitch,” the voice of Chihiro in Hayao Miyazaki’s Oscar-winning “Spirited Away,” and child horror villain Samara in “The Ring” opposite Naomi Watts.
She’s also appeared in “Donnie Darko” as the sister of Jake Gyllenhaal’s title character, and as the underage wife of Harry Dean Stanton’s religious leader in HBO’s “Big Love.”
A man who identified himself as Chase’s boyfriend, Roy Hernandez, told TMZ on Wednesday that the actress passed away on Tuesday at the age of 35 following a bout with meningitis, followed by sepsis.
The outlet reported that Chase had recently been admitted to a Los Angeles hospital for malnutrition.
Just prior to the actress’s death, Hernandez set up a GoFundMe in her name — though The California Post reported on Wednesday amid news of her death that Chase’s longtime manager, John Ryan, called out the move.
“Apparently, a man claiming to be her ‘boyfriend’ that none of us friends or her family has heard of has set up a GoFundMe on ‘her and her families behalf’ that he set her up as the organizer. I can confirm Daveigh has a trust account set up at SAG to cover all costs,” Ryan told The Post.
The outlet also shared images from a video from late 2025, to which Ryan was alerted before attempting to find the actress and get her help.
The video — which has since been removed from social media — depicted a frail Chase lying on the floor of a trailer or tent on Los Angeles’ infamous Skid Row.
Meanwhile, on social media, Chase’s fans took the comments thread of her final post — a pic of Chase posing next to a unicorn balloon shared back in 2017 — to pay their respects.
“RIP beautiful girl, you deserved so much better, thank you for the nostalgia, your special words & voice, that molded these characters to be something so memorable in our lives. You left an imprint on all our hearts, God bless you, soar with the angels 
” one person remarked.
Others shared GIFs from Chase’s best-known roles. One, featuring an image from “Lilo & Stitch,” quoted one of the film’s most memorable lines. “Ohana means family. Family means nobody gets left behind or forgotten.”
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