Brenda Song

Brenda Song was born in California on 27th March 1988 to a Thai mother and a Hmong father. Her family belonged to the prestigious Xiong Clan and they moved to United States for a better life. She has two siblings. Her father works as a school teacher while her mother is a homemaker.

Brenda, since her early childhood, showed an enthusiasm towards dancing and other performing arts. Her father enrolled her into a martial arts class. She also wanted to take belle classes along with that, but her father disagreed. She was able to convince her mother to take her to Los Angeles, where Brenda wanted to try acting.

Although she was homeschooled, Brenda was pretty good in academics and eventually ended up doing her major in psychology, with a minor degree in business studies.

Brenda Song’s career started when a casting agent spotted her in a shopping mall. She wasn’t more than 5 years of age and her mother accepted the offer and Brenda’s very first introduction to fame happened in the form of Little Caesars commercial. A Barbie commercial followed sometime later and Breda started getting popular among kids.

In 1995, she was approached to play a role in ‘Requiem’, an independent film and appeared in a few short films later. She exhibited immense confidence in front of the camera and the entire crew loved having her around. Her next appearance on television was a two episode role in ‘Thunder Alley’ and soon after that, a regular role in ‘Fudge’ followed. Dozens of other roles followed and Song became one of the most popular child actors, but was somehow type-cast to play ‘Asian’ characters.

In 2000, she was presented a couple of awards for her role in ‘The Ultimate Christmas Present’ and two years later, her performance on ‘The Bernie Mac’ show met with critical acclaim and established her as a good actor. In 2002, Disney signed her on and she became one of the many child actors Disney channel had signed for many shows under production.

Brenda started with guest appearances on Disney shows, but the biggest break of her career arrived in 2005, when Disney’s ‘Suite Life of Zack and Cody’ started airing on the channel. Song played the spoilt daughter of an Asian businessman, who was a little ‘dumb’ and her character became the most loved one on the show. Later, the writers said that she wasn’t even auditioned for the role and in a way, she was always on their mind while writing the character.