With The Book of Boba Fett, Ming-Na Wen keeps up Disney+ Star Wars run that began with The Mandalorian

The American actress reprises her Fennec Shand role in The Book of Boba Fett on Disney+, a character first slated to appear in one episode of The Mandalorian
Wen played Agent Melinda May in Marvel series Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and would love to see characters from the series folded into the Marvel Cinematic Universe

Star Wars

Tribune News Service

Published: 7:15pm, 29 Dec 2021

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No matter how many Star Wars shows Ming-Na Wen stars in, her mother will never quite grasp what all the fuss is about.

“She was a very practical woman who has gone through so many struggles in her life and ran a restaurant and raised kids,” Wen says over Zoom while wearing a Baby Yoda sweatshirt. “She’s an incredible woman, but she doesn’t understand Star Wars.”

Wen, 58, is one of the co-leads of The Book of Boba Fett, a new Disney+ series that is now streaming. She stars as mercenary Fennec Shand, a character she has now played in three separate Disney+ Star Wars series, alongside Temuera Morrison’s titular bounty hunter.

Many may find that to be a pretty cool accomplishment, but when Wen showed her mother a trailer for The Book of Boba Fett, her response was: “Huh, you like this. Why?”

Wen attends the Game Awards in the Microsoft Theatre, Los Angeles, California, in December, 2021. Photo: EPA-EFE

It’s pretty clear why Wen would be excited about continuing her long and prosperous journey with Disney, which has included voicing the princess in 1998’s Mulan and playing Agent Melinda May on ABC’s Marvel series Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

For her and the rest of the Book of Boba Fett team, show creator Dave Filoni – who also created multiple animated Star Wars series and worked on the first two seasons of Disney+’s The Mandalorian – “is the encyclopaedia of Star Wars”, Wen says.

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Though she’s currently “living out my fantasy life” in Hollywood, Wen maintains strong ties to Pittsburgh, the American city where she was raised.

Her brother and his wife still run the Chinatown Inn restaurant downtown, which Wen is confident “is not going anywhere for a while” thanks to its high-quality culinary offerings and devoted clientele.

Wen was also recently asked to be on the board of Carnegie Mellon University’s College of Fine Arts, though she wasn’t able to because of her crazy schedule. She is an alumnus of the university.

The actress has played high-profile television roles throughout her career, including the tough-as-nails Agent May on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Marvel recently started folding characters from its Netflix series into its larger cinematic universe, and Wen would love to see the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. gang get the same treatment.

“I miss being Agent May,” she says. “We have such an incredible, long history. I sort of feel like Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. paved the way. … Agent May and Black Widow, they’re best buddies! I would absolutely love having that happen.”

Wen at the premiere of Disney’s latest Mulan movie in 2020 at Dolby Theatre, in Hollywood, California. Photo: AFP

Her priority now, of course, is continuing with her role as Fennec Shand across the Star Wars TV universe. The character made her debut in Season 1 of The Mandalorian, came back for Season 2, appeared in animated form during the first season of Filoni’s Star Wars: The Bad Batch series and will be stepping into a more central role for the first time in The Book of Boba Fett.

For a character that was originally only supposed to appear in that one episode of The Mandalorian, Wen considers playing Fennec “an out-of-body experience half the time”, and she can’t wait for audiences to watch her and Boba Fett navigate the Star Wars universe’s criminal underbelly.

“There’s a lot they have in common, but they also complement each other because she’s more street smart and has had to live on her own,” Wen says. “He sort of needs Fennec’s street smarts. It’s an exploration of how they’re able to handle this underworld of Star Wars that has never been explored before.”

Wen speaks during The Game Awards 2021, in Los Angeles, California. Photo: AFP

Wen is looking forward to finding out how Fennec gained her tools of the trade, as well as showing audiences that while Fennec and Agent May may seem similar due to their stoic natures, Fennec’s “morals can fluctuate very quickly depending on what serves her”, in contrast to May’s more loyal tendencies.

As Wen sees it, her life has been “altered tremendously” by her relationship with Disney. She used to love going to pop-culture conventions and now enjoys engaging with her fans on social media because “it makes me so happy to be able to brighten their day for a few minutes”.

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