Maggie Q Interview Magazine

Action vixen Maggie Q brings new meaning to the term "bicoastal." The 27-year-old star of Asian cinema divides her time between Los Angeles and Hong Kong, a geographical split reflected in her career. "For me," she says, "getting on a plane is like getting into a cab." In the Far East, the actress has appeared in numerous popular films, on the covers of Time and Cosmopolitan, and in ads for Coca-Cola and Shiseido.

In Hollywood, meanwhile, her star is still rising: Bit parts in Rush Hour 2 (2001) and Around the World in 80 Days (2004) were a run-up to her role in this month’s Mission: Impossible III. Q plays Zhen, one of the principal members of the special assignment team that includes Tom Cruise, Ving Rhames, and Laurence Fishburne. "I was trained by a technical-weapons expert," she says. "It was very weird. My instructor would joke, ‘You know, Maggie, when I kill people . . .’ And I’d be like, ‘What? What the hell did you just say?’"

Born Maggie Quigley in Honolulu to a Vietnamese mother and American father, the actress grew up with four older siblings. She envisioned herself a lawyer, a journalist, or maybe a veterinarian. But after a trip to Tokyo that led to a series of modeling gigs, she decided to start acting. She starred in House of the Dragon, a Chinese television series, and she’s acted steadily ever since. "You do a movie in Hong Kong and the process is the same as it is on M:I3, except that the movie’s not backed by $160 million," she says. "But the things that you learn and the things that you experience are similar."

UPDATE :: High quality scan in the gallery!