Lisa Olivia Munn was born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. She is of Chinese descent on her mother's side (though her mother was raised in Vietnam) and of German and Irish descent on her father's. When Munn was two, her mother re-married, this time to a man in the United States Air Force. Although the family relocated many times, Munn was predominantly raised in Tokyo, Japan, where the military stationed her stepfather. During this time, she had appeared in a number of local theater productions, and later became a model within the Japanese fashion industry. Her parents divorced and she moved back to Oklahoma, where she attended Putnam City North High School for her junior and senior years and where she was a contemporary of Hinder bassist Mike Rodden, future Oklahoma state senator David Holt and author Aaron Goldfarb. She also attended the University of Oklahoma, majoring in journalism and minoring in Japanese and dramatic arts