Ming-Na's History-Making Gay Universe On 'SGU': A SheWired Exclusive

(continued)

Exactly. So you are in a league of your own.

Wow. I feel very privileged to carry that crown. (laughs)

I hate to admit this… I was not up on my Stargate history.

That’s okay. Neither was and then I was hired.

Bad sci-fi lesbian that I am, I was not aware that this franchise had been going since 1994. What sort of research did you do to get into this world?

I had known about Stargate but I never really watched too many of the episodes. I would be channel surfing and Beau Bridges would catch my attention or maybe some action sequence…and I watch a little bit of it but I wasn’t a follower.

When my agent called and presented this project to me I immediately rented some DVD’s. I was a little hesitant because I am a sci-fi fan and I used to enjoy that genre of sci-fi where it’s a little campy and a little bit light. But I’m more into heavier sci-fi… I had a conversation with Robert Cooper (Stargate writer and producer). I’m not in a lot of the pilot episode – I mean Camile Wray isn’t— and I was a little hesitant about that, but he expressed a real desire to develop a strong female character who would be in contention with the military, with the men in her life, battling out decisions, ideas and power struggles. And that really interested me. And the fact that she would also have a side to her that you might dislike at first, where she kind of comes on as someone who’s ambitious or very strong…

Well, strong women are often not appreciated at first.

Especially one with a title and some power. I didn’t want her to be disliked. That’s why they wanted to hire me to, I guess, bring some warmth to the character. And I didn’t find out about her being a lesbian until I was hired actually.

Is that something you think developed over time and out of the character’s development or did they just drop it on you last minute?

According to Brad Wright (executive producer), in writing the series – I don’t know if it’s a risk for Syfy as this juncture – but they were taking so many risks with SGU as far as changing the look of this amazing franchise, as far as developing more character-driven storylines, they felt that there was a void in representing the gay community and they wanted to take on that task. So they approached me about that and my eyebrows when up. I was like “Oh, wow. I’ve never played a lesbian before.” And that fascinated and challenged me.

You know, I always want to do something I’ve never done before – like kiss a girl (laughs).

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