Ming-Na played Emmy-award winning television show, E.R's, Dr. Jing-Mei Chen. With her family, Ming-Na immigrated to the United States from Macau, China, when she was four years old. Early in her career, she won a role in As The World Turns, receiving the first contract role for an Asian actor in daytime television. She has acted in many plays, and also provided the title voice for Disney's animated feature film, Mulan, winning her the first Annie Award for Outstanding Individual Achievement for Voice Acting by a Female Performer in an Animated Feature Production. She also co-starred in the film, One-Night Stand and has guest-starred in several TV shows, including Two and a Half Men, Boston Legal and Private Practice.
Career Highlights: Mulan, Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, Tempting Fate
First Major Screen Credit: Street Fighter (1994)
Biography
An actress who can play period drama as convincingly as contemporary comedy, Ming-Na Wen was born in Macau, China, on November 20, 1963. When she was four, Ming-Na and her family pulled up stakes and moved to the United States, first settling in New York City and five years later relocating to Pittsburgh, PA, where her parents opened a restaurant, the Chinatown Inn (which they still operate today). In the third grade, Ming-Na played a bunny rabbit in a school play, and she was fascinated with the theater from that moment on; after graduating from high school, Ming-Na enrolled in Carnegie-Mellon University, where she graduated with honors and received a degree in theater. Ming-Na moved to New York to pursue an acting career, and in 1988, she was cast as Lien Hughes on As the World Turns, making her the first Asian-American to appear as a regular on a daytime drama. Ming-Na continued on the show until 1991, after which she continued to work in the theater and appeared in a pair of made-for-TV movies before she was cast in The Joy Luck Club, Wayne Wang's popular screen adaptation of the best-selling novel by Amy Tan. Ming-Na next took a left turn into the action-drama Street Fighter, but in 1995 she became part of the ensemble cast of the popular and award-winning television series E.R., playing Dr. Deb Chen. At the same time, she was also cast in the sitcom The Single Guy as Trudy, the hipper-than-thou gallery owner. Despite her busy television schedule, Ming-Na continued to pursue film work, making a startling and sexy appearance in Mike Figgis' One Night Stand in 1997 while providing the voice for the leading character in the Disney-animated drama Mulan in 1998. Ming-Na lives with her husband and daughter in Los Angeles, and when not occupied with her busy schedule of film and television work, she helps with production and management for the Asian-American harmony group At Last. ~ All Movie Guide
Ming-Na Wen (Pinyin: Míng-Nà Wēn) (born November 20, 1963) is an Annie Award winning American actress. She has been credited with and without her family name, but most credits since the late 1990s have been without it.
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.
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.
