TEEN HOLLYWOOD interview

Maggie Q's Impossible Mission



She’s a gorgeous, Hawaiian born, Vietnamese/American actress, a model gone action star in films in Japan and China. A Jackie Chan protégé, Maggie Q co-starred with the super-action man in several films and had a small part in the 2001 sequel Rush Hour 2.

A delicate-featured young woman, when Maggie dresses up, as she does for a party scene in her new film Mission Impossible III, she’s more supermodel material than kick butt assassin but, as Zhen, a strong member of the Impossible Missions Force, she’s literally “dressed to kill”. We enjoyed the actress’s cat-like moves in the movie. Everything she does has a flow and grace. Maggie wasn’t feeling too well but was willing to take a little time to chat with us about her part in the film, the differences between American and Asian film work, working with director J.J. Abrams, being the only girl on a kick-butt male team, her “look” in the film etc…

TeenHollywood: Why is your last name just one letter… Q?

Maggie Q: What happened was when I was living and working in Hong Kong, one of the biggest newspapers there when they first started writing about me around seven or eight years ago, they could not pronounce my last name so they printed Q, Maggie Q, and so because they were the biggest [paper] everybody followed them. [It’s Quigley] but, in Asia, everyone knows me as Q. I would show up to events, and everyone would say ‘Maggie Q’, and I was like, ‘Oh, okay. Guess that is my name’.

TeenHollywood: What was the process of getting cast in the role of Zhen in the film?

Maggie Q: They found me in Hong Kong actually, I have been living and working in Hong Kong for about eight years doing action films. I got the call. I went over to L.A. I met with J.J. and Paul Wagner, and I auditioned for them really, really ill, but somehow I was offered the role right there.



TeenHollywood: Given J.J. Abrams’ ability to discover great women actors, did he tell you what specifically he saw in you, and what he wanted from you in this?

Maggie Q: That is so funny because a lot of people ask me why I was cast in the role, which really I do not know, but one thing I do remember is when I came into the casting in L.A. I was really, really ill, and J.J. sat me down. He said, ‘I know it is really hard for you to concentrate, but this is what I am looking for before we begin’. So we sat there, and I am listening to him, and he says, ‘I have cast loads of people. I know what I want, and I have not found it yet because the woman that I want for this role is a woman who is strong enough to be sort of at Tom’s level, at Ving’s level, and Johnny’s level; a woman who will be present within this group’. Obviously a group like that is a pretty intimidating group of men. You have this very imposing black guy [Ving Rhames], wonderful actor, and just imposing figure, you have Tom, and then you have Johnny [Rhys-Meyers], and a very strong team. So he said, ‘I cannot have a woman in this role who gets lost by these men. I cannot have a woman in this role who speaks with Tom Cruise, and people do not believe that she is at his level’ and that is what he told me during the casting.

TeenHollywood: Cool. So you fit the bill. Does being in a really big movie like this impact your acting so that you do things differently?

Maggie Q: No, because I think that, as a actress or an actor, your process is essentially the same no matter what size of film you are walking onto. For this film it was just basically acting at this level with such people. I mean that was really the challenge. I could be working on a million dollar independent film with Phil [Phillip Seymour] Hoffman, and be just as afraid, and wonder if I was good enough. In this film we have such wonderful non-action actors.

TeenHollywood: I think when a lot of fans discover you for the first time in this movie they are going to be very interested in where you came from. Can you tell us about your interesting background?

Maggie Q: I was born, and raised in Hawaii. So I am American. My father is American (Irish/Polish). My mother is Vietnamese. I left Hawaii when I was around 17, 18 after school, and I moved to Asia [to earn money as a model for college]. I traveled around Asia, and I was in Japan, and then Taiwan, and ended up in Hong Kong for eight years, and getting into the film industry in Hong Kong. So I have been doing Asian films until that time, and this is my first American movie.



TeenHollywood: What was it like to be the only female member of the IMF team?

Maggie Q: Right.[Laughter]. It was interesting because I think by the time we were three quarters of the way done I would tease Tom, and Ving [Rhames], and Johnny [Rhys-Meyers] and tell them that, after this movie, I was going to do a chick flick because there is just all this ‘maleness’. It was interesting because you would think that I would feel kind of out of place, and that if I was the only girl, people would treat me a certain way. But, the great thing is that being the only girl, they all took care of me really well. I think they were trying to kind of compensate because they realized that I might feel a little bit… not really substantial. They really watched over me, and that was great.

TeenHollywood: J.J. Abrams created “Alias” and is very supportive of having strong female characters. So how is it like working with him as your director?

Maggie Q: He is like incredible. He is a Director with no ego. He is a Director who has a very consistent attitude when he is at work. He is funny. He is brilliant. He is this combination of all these really great things, and when you work with him you always have the feeling that we are doing something special. J.J. is the kind of person who sees the bigger picture before anyone else does, and it sounds simple, but I mean not all directors do that.



TeenHollywood: Given now that you were new to the IMF team, what sort of research did you need to do?

Maggie Q: J.J. sort of wanted to go back to the [old TV] series, and sort of emulate that. The spirit of Mission Impossible III was ‘Mission Impossible’ from the early days, and that is sort of what he wanted, but then, at the same time, he wanted a very modern rendition of what they used to do. Obviously we are not living in the ‘60’s anymore. Our audiences are getting younger, and he wanted something modern enough to where young people go and see it and young people who were not alive at the time of the series would get what was happening.

TeenHollywood: What sort of challenges did shooting in Rome provide you with in compared with the challenges in China?

Maggie Q: Well, different challenges obviously because there are certain language barriers, and things like that, but I mean Rome… the crews there are pretty incredible. We worked together really well. I think with the size of the crew that we had in Rome, the scale of what we were doing, we had that work together in harmony, and I think we managed to do it pretty well.

TeenHollywood: Can you talk a little about the preparation for this? Did you do more martial arts training, and are you a big Jackie Chan fan?

Maggie Q: Well, Jackie is actually my boss in Hong Kong. I worked under him for years, was trained by his stunt guys, and what not. So yeah, am I a fan of Jackie’s? Totally! I do not know anyone who works harder than Jackie or anybody who deserves what they have more than Jackie, but because I have worked in Hong Kong, and under his team, I was prepared for the kind of training that we had in this film. Obviously the level of training was different. Every time you work with different stunt coordinators it is going to be an entirely different experience, even though it is all fighting.

TeenHollywood: How much did you actually train?

Maggie Q: I trained for weeks, and weeks before this film started, and then I trained throughout the duration of the film so in total it was about six months, I mean nonstop because with action you cannot just train, and then stop, and expect your level to be at the level that they need. You kind of have to keep soldiering on through the whole film.

TeenHollywood: You get to have some nice glamorous scenes also. Have you enjoyed the fantasy party gowns, and stuff?

Maggie Q: You know what is really funny is that I love being kind of dirty, and not having to look nice because when you look nice you kind of have to look nice all the time. But, in this film, I just loved that there is this duality of this woman who can be on the front line with T.C. and go in and storm this building, get what they need, and get out, but also she’s a woman who can dress appropriately and really essentially be a spy as well.



TeenHollywood: Working on a movie with huge American movie stars, can you allow yourself a moment to be star struck a little?

Maggie Q: You would think that would happen, but the funny thing is if you do that you sort of get eaten alive by your own lack of confidence. So I never really allowed myself those moments to just go, ‘Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god’ because I felt like, if I did that, I would really not be drawing from the confidence that I was trying to find in the first place to be acting with such wonderful actors. My costars in this film from Tom to Lawrence to Phil… there was never a moment when I was filming that they ever allowed me to be star struck because they are such human beings all the time. [A lot of] actors are not like that, especially actors at this level. When they act like such great, tangible human beings, it allows you to be more relaxed around them, and allows you to feel more at ease, and at home.