by Paul Fischer

Ming-Na may be the voice behind a CGI character in Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, but the co-star of e.r. and the classic film The Joy Luck Club, amongst others, has become a dominant force in American Asian culture. The popular Asian-American Magazine, A, recently voted her as one of the 100 most influential Asian Americans of the past decade. It is much to live up to, the 33-year old Hong Kong-born star concedes. "I don't know. It's such a compliment yet such a challenge to figure out: Why did they pick me and what did I do? For me it's like: I go to work, do what I love and that's it." In trying to analyze what it is that makes one influential, she gives a slight pause. "I think it's just following your heart. The kinds of characters that have always attracted me are like role models for me and they make me realize what I'm capable of doing if I set my mind to doing it. And I guess that gets translated when it reaches into the audience who in turn gets influenced by it. So for some inexplicable reason, I become one of the most influential Asian Americans", she laughs.

Originally credited as Ming Na-Wen, she first received critical acclaim for her lead role in the hit movie The Joy Luck Club, based on the best-seller novel by Amy Tan. An honors graduate in Drama from Carnegie-Mellon University, Ming-Na began her career in Pittsburgh before moving to New York. She continued her stage training there and appeared in several plays. But it was when she moved to California that she landed a role on the daytime drama As the World Turns. After the TV comedy The Single Guy was canceled, she continued with her film career garnering strong reviews in Mike Figgis' One Night Stand with Wesley Snipes. Her other credits include Street Fighter and Rain Without Thunder. Ming-Na also supplied the voice of Disney's Mulan, and loved the idea of returning to animation territory in hyper-realistic Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within. Though animated, Ming-Na sees her character, Dr. Aki Ross, as being "a very complex woman with so many mysterious qualities about her. She's also really strong." Not to mention the fact that "she wants to save the world, which is a little bit of an A-personality for me", she adds.

Far more surrealistic and philosophical than what one might expect from a movie based on a video game, it is precisely those elements which are so specifically Asian, that appealed to Ming-Na when she signed on to voice Aki. "The philosophies and influences of the Asians' ideals are definitely intact in the movie, and that was obviously a great appeal. The whole idea of just how we relate to the earth and to each other are all interesting to me." Ming-Na also admits to being "a huge sci-fi geek. When I was little, Star Wars and The Force - were a religion to me. I used to pray to Buddha, God --- and The Force." Now this ex-president of her high school science fiction club, has a chance to live out her own fantasies. "What a cool way to make a living."

When not supplying voices to strong female characters, Ming-Na is busy on television. She initially appeared in the first season of the hit series e.r. as Dr Chen, and was enticed back to reprise her character. "It was the right timing and the right place for me to come back. I've always loved the people in the show. They called me up out of the blue and asked me if I wanted to come back with the same character. It's still the number 1 show, still great writing and at that point I felt I wanted to do more television and have a stable life, rather than travel all the time. So it worked out." Even to the point of including her real-life pregnancy as an e.r. plot line "which was very cool and gave me a lot to do with Chen."

As successful as Ming-Na is, the actress also concedes that roles for Asian Americans, still remain limited. "Knock on wood I've been in the right place at the right time, but I've been in Hollywood now since The Joy Luck Club, seven years ago, and you see some momentum going in one direction and then it stops. It's really challenging and still a constant struggle." Yet Ming-Na continues to delve in this uncertain profession "because I love it so much. Maybe I'm masochistic but I just love the challenge of it, just to prove that they're wrong, to try to change people's narrow perceptions of what Asian Americans are."