TV Talk: Ming-Na Wen’s Mt. Lebanon ties may have kept her ‘Mandalorian’ character alive

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She’s been an animated princess warrior in “Mulan,” part of the Marvel universe on ABC’s “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D” and now actress Ming-Na Wen is tearing up that galaxy far, far away in two “Star Wars” Disney+ series, live-action “The Mandalorian” and animated “The Bad Batch.”

To top it all off, she’ll get a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame sometime in the next two years alongside another “Star Wars” mainstay, the late Carrie Fisher (aka Princess Leia).

Born in China, Wen moved to the United States at age 4 and her family later settled in Mt. Lebanon, which may have helped extend the life of her “Mandalorian” character, bounty hunter Fennec Shand.

During the filming of season one of “The Mandalorian,” Wen said fellow Mt. Lebanon High School grad Dave Filoni, an executive producer on “The Mandalorian” and “The Bad Batch,” remarked that a person on the “Mandalorian” set dressed in black and yellow was wearing “Penguins colors.” Filoni is a massive Penguins fan. Wen took note of the exchange.

“I’m from Pittsburgh,” Wen told Filoni. “I love the Steelers.”

From there the conversation led to the eventual discovery of their shared Mt. Lebanon upbringings.

“We just instantly bonded,” Wen said. “And then he was like, ‘Well, now Fennec can’t die.’ And I’m like, ‘No, she can’t!’”

“What are the chances of two kids who went to a small suburban high school end up fulfilling their dreams, having been huge ‘Star Wars’ fans, of working in ‘Star Wars’?” Wen continued. “It’s just so unlikely. It definitely was like one of those meant-to-be moments.”

It was during the filming of “The Mandalorian” season two when Filoni floated the idea of Fennec taking animated form in “The Bad Batch,” which is set about 30 years before events in “The Mandalorian” and serves as a sequel to “The Clone Wars” animated series. “Bad Batch” follows five misfit clone soldiers who encounter Fennec as she’s hunting a young clone.

Wen said “The Bad Batch” offers an opportunity to delve into Fennec Shand’s background, which is pretty mysterious in “The Mandalorian.”

“For me it was about filling in the blanks of what kind of life she had as a child that gave her all these skills to be such a good bounty hunter at such a young age,” Wen said. “In ‘The Bad Batch’ we’re placing her in her very early 20s if not 19.”

Wen said playing the role in live-action helped prep her for doing voiceover work in “The Bad Batch,” which releases new episodes every Friday through Aug. 13.

“Because Im so familiar with how she moves, who she is — I’d already had probably a year at that point to be familiar with Fennec — so doing a younger version of her was a lot easier,” said Wen, a 1986 Carnegie Mellon University acting grad. “Doing the fight scenes is so much easier when you’re just doing the voice acting. I texted my [‘Mandalorian’] stunt double, and showed her the clip of a (‘Bad Batch’) fight scene and I’m like, ‘Oh, my goodness, it’s just so much easier. You dont have to train me for this one!”

As for the animated appearance of Fennec, Wen said the producers didn’t want to stray too far from the look created in live-action, although Wen said, “I am curious to see what else is in her closet. Does she change into pajamas at all ever?

“The only difference,” Wen continued, “and I think I’m correct in this, is she doesn’t have a scar under her left eye yet. So I’m very curious how she got that scar.”

Perhaps that will be explored in subsequent seasons of “The Bad Batch” or maybe in a flashback during “The Book of Boba Fett,” a limited series spin-off of “The Mandalorian” that Wen shot from November 2020 to May 2021. “Book of Boba Fett” will premiere in December.

Due to the pandemic, it’s been a while since Wen has made it back to Pittsburgh where her brother still runs the family restaurant, Chinatown Inn, in Downtown Pittsburgh.

Wen said her mother, who now lives in Las Vegas, was feeling isolated early in the pandemic, so her brother and his wife drove their RV to Vegas to pick her up and bring her back to Pittsburgh for almost seven months.

“I wish I was there in the RV to experience that with her because it opened up this whole other world to her that she never knew existed, the RV life where people actually park their RVs and there are little communities,” Wen said. “She was just so fascinated by it all and thought it was very odd that’s how some of these people live all the time. That would have made such a cute mini-movie: ‘An Asian Mom Discovering an RV Trip.’”