Actress Ming-Na Wen recently spent some time chatting with StarWars.com about joining the diverse cast of Star Wars characters with her portrayal of deadly sharpshooting specialist Fennec Shand. Her character made her on-screen debut in Season 1 of The Mandalorian live-action series as an adversary to titular lead Din Djarin, but has since switched gears in Season 2 as Shand (set with her own character poster) has now teamed up with Djarin and Boba Fett on their mission to rescue Grogu from the Imperial clutches of Moff Gideon.
Fans will be seeing more of Shand outside The Mandalorian as well – she was featured briefly in the explosive sizzle reel that was released last week for The Bad Batch animated series coming to Disney+ next year. Check out the intro to StarWars.com’s piece on Wen copied below and then take the supplied source link for the full segment.
The first time Ming-Na Wen walked onto the set of The Mandalorian, Tatooine materialized before her very eyes as the Stagecraft set powered up, surrounding her in its glow. “They turned on the Volume and there were the two suns,” she tells StarWars.com. “And tears welled up in my eyes. I was on Tatooine!” It was as if she’d been transported not just to the Star Wars galaxy, but back in time.
Growing up in Mount Lebanon, Pennsylvania — a hometown she shares with fellow Pittsburgh native and The Mandalorian executive producer Dave Filoni — Wen dreamed of becoming an actor. Some days she would grab take out from her family’s restaurant, The Chinatown Inn, and head to a matinee at the local movie theater, she says. Among the films that inspired her were science fiction epics like 2001: A Space Odyssey and, of course, the original Star Wars trilogy. Wen saw herself reflected back in the story of Luke Skywalker, who dared to dream of a life that his humble, hardworking family didn’t quite understand. “I think growing up in Pittsburgh also made me go in that direction,” Wen says. “I was one of the only Asians growing up in Mount Lebanon at that time and [Star Wars and science fiction were] great escapism for me and a sense of belonging.” Wen was even the president of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Club in high school, she notes. “That’s what I loved. That’s what I daydreamed about. I wanted to be Luke Skywalker. I wanted to be Han Solo. I wanted to be Leia. They were all different parts of me that I wished I could be.”
As the young farm boy gazed out at the horizon and the music swelled, Wen felt a kinship with the would-be Jedi. “He’s just looking out and feeling like his dreams are squashed again…that was sort of my struggle at the time, you know? I wanted to be an actor and my parents didn’t understand it, and didn’t want me to do it.” A young Wen was left wondering if she’d always be stuck in her hometown, helping out at the family business instead of pursuing her dreams. “There were a lot of similarities.”
