Mylène Jampanoï was born Lena Jam-Panoï[1] on 12 July 1980 in Aix-en-Provence, Bouches-du-Rhône, France,[2] to a Chinese father and a French-Breton mother.

[5] Her father, who immigrated to France from China through Vietnam, abandoned the family when she was three years old, and later established a prosperous textile business in Canada.

[2] As a teenager, Jampanoï fled her family home due to her mother's severe depression, and lived with her boyfriend in a Paris squat.

[8] Jampanoï took the role against the advice of her agent, and later stated that making the film was emotionally difficult due to its extreme content: "Every night when I went back to my room, I just cried, because I was so physically and psychologically tired.

[9] Next, she appeared in the French mockumentary film The Ball of Actresses (2009), directed by Maïwenn, and in 2010, had a supporting role in Clint Eastwood's drama Hereafter, playing a news reporter.

[12] She subsequently had a central role in Made in China (2019), a comedy film about a French-Chinese family preparing for a wedding, directed by Julien Abraham.

[14] In addition to acting, Jampanoï is also a visual artist, whose paintings were exhibited in the spring of 2022 at the Paris Galerie Sobering, as part of the Athènes n'est pas en Grèce (lit.