"I haven't seen it in its entirety
– I've only seen bits and pieces of it," says actress Ming-Na of
the film Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, in which she voices
one of the key roles. "But every time I see more of it, I'm more
blown away. I can't wait to see the final product."
Speaking in a roundtable interview prior to her recent appearance at the
Los Angeles Comic Book & Science Fiction Convention, the actress –
perhaps best-known for her voice work in Disney's Mulan as well
as on-screen roles in Street Fighter and TV's E.R. –
discussed her role in Final Fantasy as well as the challenges of
voice work.
Ming-Na came to be involved in Final Fantasy through her previous
video game-related endeavor, 1994's Street Fighter. "The
gentleman who is one of the producers [on Final Fantasy], Jun
Aida, worked with me on Street Fighter," she recalls.
"We developed a friendship after the film, and when he got this
job, the first person he thought of was me. He called me up and asked me
if I wanted to do it."
The part she was up for was that of Dr.
Aki Ross, a scientist involved in defending our world against alien
invaders. "In a nutshell, she is trying to understand her role in
life in relationship to what's going on in the world," the actress
explains. "There's such a spiritual aspect to her character, as
well as the basic emotions of her denying herself love in order to focus
on her destiny. It's so large in scope to try to sum up, but she's
basically trying to follow her beliefs and trying to save the
Earth." She adds with a laugh: "You know, small stuff like
that!"
Amusingly, considering the all-star
voice cast (including Alec Baldwin, Steve Buscemi, Ving Rhames, Donald
Sutherland, and James Woods), Ming-Na actually recorded all of her role
alone, without interacting with the other performers. "We do it all
seperately," she says. "I got used to that from doing Mulan.
Apparently, they do a lot of animation that way – they don't like to
have the other actors involved because it's so time-consuming for them
to make sure that each line is precise and clear with the emotional
intent the director is looking for. In that aspect, it's completely
different from any other acting work."
Ming-Na's Final Fantasy character, Aki
Ross, on the cover of the Maxim Hot 100.
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But those challenges don't diminish her
love of voice work: "I like that I don't have to worry about how I
look when I go in! And the fact that you can really delve into a fantasy
world and use your imagination. Just sort of embark on this adventure
without having to deal with the time aspect of actually shooting a
project."
Because Final Fantasy uses ultra-realistic character designs and
CGI work, Ming-Na reports that to see the footage – with her voice
coming out of a completely different "actor's" mouth – was
"very odd, because I didn't realize just how lifelike they would
be. Now that I've seen a little more of it, I'm more used to it. But in
the beginning it was a little disconcerting."
Finally, this advanced animation style (along with the fact that the
film will reportedly be rated PG-13) causes the actress to wonder if the
film might not hold more appeal for adults than children. "Kids
nowadays are so jaded already with all the images they get from
television and in movies," she says, "that this will probably
be more fascinating and interesting to adults because it's such a
different type of animation than anything they've ever seen
before."
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