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Hey, boys and girls, it’s been ages since we last caught up with the
fabulous
Maggie Q
at the 2008 Tribeca Film festival. Since then, Ms.
Q
has brought her sexy action game to television with the WB’s
Nikita.
We chatted with
Maggie
about her illustrious Asian action film past and its effect on her work
today as she celebrated
Nikita’s
second season at the 2011 New York Comic Con.
Dig it!
Nikita
Maggie Q
 The
Lady Miz Diva: So much has happened to you since I saw you last.
Maggie Q: Yeah, and your hair’s a different colour…or three
different colours! So cool. {Laughs}
LMD:
Of course, I have to ask about the physicality in Nikita. I heard
somewhere that you used to do action movies…
MQ:
Hmm... Something like that, yeah.
 LMD:
Having been trained by some of the legends of Hong Kong action
filmmaking, how much of that special background is useful in this role?
How much of that history do you bring to the table and say, “Well, we
can do it like this, but why don’t we try it like that?” regarding
action choreography?
MQ:
It’s interesting, I have to say, my early days, like now, more than
anything I never knew at that time where I was going to go. I’m really
a “moment” person. I’m really super-present and I’m going to put
everything into what I’m doing. You see in interviews, “Where do you
want to be in five years?” I say, “I have no idea!” {Laughs} I
cannot answer that question.
So, I was living moment-to-moment at the
time, and wanting to do my best, but I don’t know if I was assimilating
the way that I should have at that time. One thing that I did take from
Asia was work ethic. It’s one of those things; we don’t have the
resources like you do in the United States - not even close. I mean, we
don’t have trailers, there’s nothing; none of the luxuries you have in
the United States do you have over there. Every penny goes into the
filmmaking. It doesn’t go into rose petals for your feet and all the
other stuff, catering, and all the other bullshit that you have in the
US -- Which is amazing bullshit that I love, and if that bullshit
went away, I’d be bummed! -- But I remember coming to the States and
thinking how amazing actors were treated and how amazing it is to
actually work in this environment of comfort and joy all the time.
 But
if we’re talking about Sammo Hung, or Jackie Chan, or Jet {Li},
or any of the really big action directors who’ve come up under them, the
Ching Siu-tungs and Yuen Woo-pings and all those people; those guys they
really put in the years, the work, the blood, the sweat, the tears,
every bone has been broken, their spirit, everything. I mean, Chow Yun-fat,
when he started, he sold handbags on the street! So, these people
really came from nothing, and I came from nothing, so I know what that’s
like. I know what that struggle’s like. So, that’s what I took from
Asia.
I will
say, weirdly, even with my background and working with Jackie and
working with his team and all these guys -- now, I didn’t just work with
Jackie, I worked for some of the best action directors in Asia, as
well. A lot of people don’t talk about them because they’re not as big
a name as Jackie -- but when I got to the States was when I really
started to refine what action meant to me and filmmaking meant to me,
because we have the resources and the time. For example, my friend
trained Keanu {Reeves} for the Matrixes, and Keanu trained for six
months for The Matrix. Six months! That’s a hundred-eighty
million dollar movie, you can do that.
And when you have the time to
really turn it into an art, that kind of time and those kind of people
who are dedicated to making you something -- and besides that,
Keanu Reeves is one of the hardest working actors in Hollywood -- but
when you have that combination with the time and the resources to
make you something, you get something like the Matrix. There was a
fight that Keanu learned that was five hundred moves in The Matrix and
he did the whole thing himself. That’s dedication, but you have the
time to do it. You need the time and the resources.
When I got
that, when I got to the States, I really understood what it meant to be
able to immerse myself in this completely. And I understand filmmaking
more than I ever did, because they took the time to refine things.
Where in Asia, everything’s like, ‘Hurry up, hurry up, hurry up, we
don’t have the money. Let’s get it done,’ and it comes out well, but
sometimes it’s luck. And in the States, everything is so much more
calculated, it’s so much more planned out, that’s where the refinement
came for me.
So, you’re absolutely right; and I was on the set the
other night and I am very, very tough on set with people in terms of I
treat people with respect, and I love them, and I want them to be good at
what they do, but I will push everyone to their edge --
everyone -- because it is our faces and our names.
You know, film
is forever; you make it and that’s what it is. The other night, there
was a move that I didn’t understand and the director was pushing me;
he’s like, “We gotta go, we gotta go,” and I was like, “No, we’re not
going because I don’t understand why this makes sense to the story. So,
you’re gonna stand there and not talk right now while I figure this out,
and when this makes sense to me, it will make sense to my audience.
Don’t rush me.”
And I’m very adamant about, like, ‘Listen, I don’t care
who you are, this is story-driven, or we don’t do it.’ So, we have
moments like that, where we just kind of stop everything and it’s like,
‘I know we’re in a rush and I know Warner Brothers has X-amount of
dollars to make this, but we have to deliver something of quality. We
can’t just shoot just to shoot.’
 {Regarding
having a hand in the fight choreography} Absolutely, especially this
season. Early into season one, I didn’t -- how do I say this? -- I was
not happy with our fight coordinator; this is around episode four or
five, so he was gone.
So, we brought in my guy from LA, actually,
somebody I’ve done three or four movies with. This guy’s excellent, his
name’s Jon Eusebio. Jon works for a company called 87eleven, which is
one of the best action design companies in Hollywood; they did 300,
which made their name, they did V for Vendetta, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, the
last Bourne {2012’s The Bourne Legacy}, I mean, they did
everything! So, Jojo is his nickname and Jojo’s sort of my guy, and I
said, “Look, Jojo, you gotta come up and we gotta end the first season,
especially make this show something they’ve not seen before on
television.” And he did.
He is a massive features guy; he did Iron Man
3 {sic}, he’s doing the Avengers now, so for him to take that
year off and come and help me on Nikita is huge and Jojo brought the
action to a level that, I’m sorry, we’ve never seen on TV. I’m sayin’
it, I don’t care! I mean the choreography, it’s poetic and it’s
story-driven and it’s real, and we worked so hard to make it that way.
And so, Jojo obviously couldn’t return for the second season; he had to
go back to his massive features career and I appreciated it.
So, we got
somebody new on for season two and the producer told me the first thing
he said to him is, “If she doesn’t like you, you’re in trouble. She is
not here to be your best friend, she’s here to push you and she’s gonna
do it.” And he said, “I’m ready.” I really like him; he doesn’t have
as much experience, obviously, as who we had last year, so I am having
to be more involved than I ever have.
But you know what; that allows me
to grow as an artist and so I appreciate that. I don’t look at it as,
‘Oh God, my workload just increased,’ I look at it as, ‘My workload just
increased, but look how much more I’m going to have to give cos look how
much more I’m learning about this process.’
~ The
Lady Miz Diva
Oct.
15th, 2011
Click here to read our original tête-à-tête with
Maggie Q at the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival.
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