Ming-Na
Ming-Na, October 2006
Chinese name	溫明娜 (Traditional)
Chinese name	温明娜 (Simplified)
Pinyin	Wēn Míngnà (Mandarin)
Birth name	Ming-Na Wen
Born	November 20, 1963 (1963-11-20) (age 46) Coloane Island, Macau
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1992–present
Spouse(s)	Kirk Aanes (1990–1993) Eric Michael Zee (1995–present)
Official Website	Ming-Na.com

Ming-Na (Pinyin: Míng-Nà Wēn) (born November 20, 1963) is an American actress. She has been credited with and without her family name, but most credits since the late 1990s have been without it. She was formerly known professionally as Ming Na-Wen.

She is known for voicing Fa Mulan in the Mulan films and Kingdom Hearts video game series, and as Dr. Jing-Mei "Deb" Chen on the NBC drama series ER. She has also appeared in four episodes of the American sitcom, Two and a Half Men, as Linda, a judge, professor and love interest of Charlie Harper. In October 2009, the actress returned to television as main character Camile Wray in Stargate Universe.¹

Personal life

Ming-Na was born on Coloane Island, Macau, to Cantonese parents and lived in Hong Kong with her mother (then working as a nurse) and older brother, and later moved to the USA as a child with her mother, older brother, and new stepfather first to Queens, NY and then to Pennsylvania. Wen attended high school in the Pittsburgh suburb of Mt. Lebanon. During her teen years she worked at her stepfather's family's restaurant called Chinatown Inn, which her family still runs today.² She graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Drama from Carnegie Mellon University.

She married American film writer Kirk Aanes in 1990, but they divorced in 1993. She married for the second time on June 16, 1995, to Eric Michael Zee, and has since had two children, daughter Michaela and son Cooper Dominic Zee, born on October 12, 2005. As of 2007^[update], she and her family live in Calabasas, California.

Career

Ming-Na's most prominent role may be as Dr. Jing-Mei "Deb" Chen on the NBC drama series ER. She first guest starred during the first season. Five years later, she was invited back as a series regular in Season 6 and remained on the show until midway through Season 11. Ming-Na starred in the movie version of Amy Tan's novel The Joy Luck Club and played Chun-Li in Street Fighter. She also appeared in a supporting role on the comedy series The Single Guy which starred Jonathan Silverman.

Ming-Na also provided the voice for the title character in Disney's animated movie Mulan, and its sequel Mulan II, as well as reprising her role in the Square Enix/Disney videogame Kingdom Hearts II, Aki Ross in the computer animated film Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, and Detective Ellen Yin in the animated series The Batman. She was also the voice actress for Jade, a minor character in the HBO animated series Spawn.

In 2004, she took part in a Hollywood Home Game on the World Poker Tour, and won. In fall 2005, she starred on the NBC drama series Inconceivable as the lead character, Rachel Lu. However, the series was canceled after only a few episodes. Her next TV role was an FBI agent in the Fox kidnap drama series Vanished, which premiered in the fall of 2006 then was canceled roughly three months later. She also has played a small role as a college professor in the comedy series George Lopez.

On October 8 through October 29, 2007, Ming-Na (billed as Ming Wen) appeared in a four-episode arc of CBS' Two and a Half Men playing Charlie Sheen's love interest, a judge closer to his own age. In November 2008, she guest-starred on two ABC series: Private Practice and Boston Legal.

On December 5–6, 2008, Ming-Na starred in a benefit production of the musical Grease with "Stuttering" John Melendez at the Class Act Theatre.³

Ming-Na has been cast as a regular in the Stargate Universe television series as political attaché Camile Wray. The series debuted in October 2009.

Ming-Na made an appearance in "Disney Through the Decades", a short documentary about the history of the Walt Disney Company through to the present, as the hostess of the 1990s section. It can be found on the Diamond Edition release of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

Filmography

Min-Na at the January 2009 premiere for Push

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Ming-Na

• Ming-Na at the Internet Movie Database
• Ming-Na interview
• Ming-Na profile at Anime News Network
• Ming-Na in Space