“I’m Still That Nerdy Girl” - Ming-Na Wen Talks Gremlins: The Wild Batch (2024)

The past two decades have brought a golden age of genre storytelling in film and on television. Perhaps best known as the voice of the titular character in Mulan, actor Ming-Na Wen has been a vital part of this pop culture renaissance. After traveling the Marvel multiverse and a galaxy far, far away, she returned to voice acting in a major way as Fong Wing in the animated series Gremlins: Secrets of the Mogwai and its second season, Gremlins: The Wild Batch.

Gizmo and the mogwai, with their strange reactions to eating after midnight and getting wet, were first introduced in the '80s classic Gremlins. The new animated series on Max, from Tze Chun and Brendan Hay, is a prequel to those films by Joe Dante, who returns as a consulting producer. In this interview with CBR, Ming-Na Wen talks about the joy of working in the Gremlins world and those of other beloved franchises. From working with other legends of pop culture to her own nerdy nature, she explains how the pressure of living up to expectations never breaks through the unique joy that comes from being a fan tasked with carrying on a legacy like Gizmo's.

CBR: You're from Pittsburgh, PA, but left to become an actor. Your character in Gremlins, Fong, represents the opposite of that impulse, no? She’s very tied to Shanghai and staying home. Do you draw from real life feelings of leaving or missing “home” in trying to bring her to life that way?

Ming-Na Wen: I think, as an actor, it's really important to bring some of your real essence into any character, because that grounds the character. That makes the character more real. And so, with Fong, it was quite easy because I got to be a mom. I've been a mom for over 20 years now, and you know, I have elder parents that I have to take care of. And [Fong] is definitely [representative of] me in those respects.

Her family is the most important thing [to her]. Everything revolves around her love for them and the need to protect them. I mean, the only difference would be I'm not as strict as Fong is. And I think it's great that in Season 2 she kind of goes through this like self-discovery of [reconciling with] and respecting her father's choices that he's made in being adventurous. And maybe she allows herself to also have a little fun in [Gremlins: The Wild Batch].

Longtime fans of your work know how rare it is that your character isn't the one that is the most adventurous, the most badass, if you will. While Fong is very capable and has a depth of strength, did playing her feel strange at all? Were you so used to portraying characters like Star Wars’ Fennec Shand or Mavel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s Melinda May that you had to like draw your instincts back or get to Fong’s different kind of heroism in a new way?

Oh yeah, I mean you know each character, what their voices are and their cadence. A lot of times, those are the subtle changes that I do when creating the character. And as with any animation, you don't get the costumes to help you out. You don't get the sets to help you out. You are literally just going into what [I like to call a style of acting] that I used to do: the black box theater. The black box becomes the set. It’s now a tree. The box is now a bench. The box is now your car.

And that's kind of what you have to do when you go into a booth all by yourself. [It’s just] you with script in hand. [Actors] go off of what the directors are looking for. It was easier for me where I immediately took those maternal tones for Fong that I would use on my own children or [when she is] irritated with the grandpa. Like, sometimes, I'm irritated with my mom, exasperated with her or her husband, for not doing what he needs to do. [laughs] It's a difficult situation. So yeah, those kind of things [Fong deals with in the series] are very similar and familiar to me.

The series is for a new audience, but it really does find that blend that the original Gremlins movie had of being for children, but also full of some heavy, sometimes scary, shenanigans. Sometimes kids' shows today don't veer into those truly tense or scary moments. As a mom, do you worry about that, or do you think it's a kind of children's storytelling audiences don't usually get anymore?

Well, I think that's why, having [Executive Producers] Steven Spielberg and Joe Dante still attaching their names to this project definitely, I think, helps to [capture that credibility] in the original. Because I'm a massive fan of [the original] Gremlins, so this was such an exciting project when it was offered to me. I immediately was like, 'Yeah, I'll do it.'

I didn't even look at the script. It's incredible, [Executive Producers] Tze [Chun] and Brandon [Hay]'s vision. They were able to incorporate so many of these deep storylines, whether it was about Shanghai in the 1920's and all the history of that to San Francisco for Season 2 in the 1920's, and the Chinese immigrant experience. Then, adapting all those sort of nuances into deeper stories and [build] to this fun and scary [series].

Like, I still jump a lot of times [watching the show]. That's the heart of [the] Gremlins [universe], right? To push the edge. And I think kids now, they've seen so much more than we did when we were kids that you have to be able to still jolt them a little bit. It's a testament having a Season 2 that we succeeded.

Now you are an official Disney Legend, but you also get to share the screen, as it were, with two legendary actors, with James Hong and George Takei. Did you ever get to record together or was that all done separately?

Yeah, that's the [common] misconception. A lot of people ask me, "What was it like to work with Eddie Murphy in Mulan?" I never met him! Or "What was it like to hang out [with my Gremlins co-stars]?" That's a misconception that we all work on it together, which is sort of impossible [for a project like this]. Every line has to be clean. If you have three or four actors in the room, we're going to talk over each other. We're going to be drinking some water while someone else is talking. We're going to hit something or phones are going to go off.

So, it's really important to isolate each actor, and [voice acting is] sort of a very lonely acting job where it's just you. During the [COVID-19 pandemic], in Season 1, we had to do the whole COVID protocol. So, I was recording out of my closet. They brought in all this equipment, set it up and that was the most buffered, soundproof room that I could find in my own home. It's an interesting process, and [I] have to hand it to the director and the producers. [They are] able to hear exactly what they need and guide [your performance] when they don't hear it. Then [they are] able to piece everything together. It's like a jigsaw puzzle that they have to put together.

Well, it's kind of a magic trick because, again, the way the performances play off each other, it sounds like everyone was there together. As a fan yourself, how does it feel to hear your work on screen fitting in seamlessly with the work of James Hong, George Takei and the rest of the star-studded cast of Gremlins: The Secrets of the Mogwai and The Wild Batch?

It's just like my first experience in seeing Mulan put together and going to the premiere. It's exactly [that feeling]. It's magical because you do it for a couple of years and then you go away. And then you see the final product when it's all put together. I mean, the animators are magicians with their talent. [They] take our voices and come up with all these images and wonderful artistry, with their own souls embedded into those images. It is magical. I love animation. I love all forms of animation. That's why I keep doing it.

Gremlins is this iconic piece of pop culture with a generational history. You're not stranger that having visited galaxies far, far away to playing the Marvel universe. Does your approach to the work change at all or is there an extra level of intimidation when you approach a storytelling universe that people have lived with for decades and feel very protective about?

I'm still that little nerd girl [I was] growing up. Being the president of my science fiction club back in high school and playing Dungeons and Dragons when we just had some paper and some dice. And that's about it. It's never intimidation. It's always excitement because I can't believe I'm so fortunate to relive my childhood and then also perpetuate [those stories]. Getting the joy that I had and how [these stories] formed me. So many of these movies have really formed who I am today.

Being able to do that for the next few generations and also bring along like people who are enjoying reliving some of those memories that you had as a child. So, it's always a joy, never an intimidation. And [I] get to work with amazing people. And it's… I don't know. I just love it. That's why I keep doing it.

Now you just mentioned paper and dice! What is your go-to Dungeons and Dragons class, then? Creative folks usually go for Bard, so do you lean into that or go a different way?

Oh, I always like being a thief [or rogue]. I like being sort of sly. I never wanted to [be the performer]. Yeah, I guess that's kind of like [Star Wars character] Fennic Shand, right? Very, very sly.

Gremlins: The WIld Batch Part 1 is now streaming on Max, with a second part expected later in the year.

Gremlins: The Wild Batch

Gizmo, Sam, and Elle embark on an adventure from Shanghai to San Francisco, encountering mischievous Mogwai and supernatural beings while navigating the American West's mysteries.