Margaret Denise Quigley, better known as Maggie Q (Chinese: 李美琪; born May 22, 1979), is an American actress and former fashion model. She initially gained fame in Hong Kong.
Biography
Early life
Maggie Q was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, to an American father of Polish, French Canadian and Irish descent, and a Vietnamese mother.12 Her parents met while her father was stationed in Vietnam. Maggie is the youngest of five children. She has two sisters and two half-siblings from her mother's previous marriage in Vietnam. After graduating from Mililani High School she traveled to Japan and Hong Kong to become a fashion model. In 1998 she got her first role in a Chinese-language TV series.citation needed
Career
She began acting in Hong Kong and elsewhere in East Asia. Because of her non-Chinese heritage, many of her Asian film appearances are in English or dubbed in Chinese languages. She has, however, stated that she took Mandarin and Cantonese lessons during her career in Asia and is able to speak both languages in varying degrees. Among her first appearances in film was the lead roles in the Hong Kong action thrillers Gen-Y Cops and Naked Weapon, in which she played the sexy but vulnerable martial artist assassin Charlene Ching. She has also played the titular role of Harmony in the German-Singapore telemovie collaboration Das Haus Der Harmonie, opposite leading Singaporean actress Fann Wong.
In 2006 she starred alongside Tom Cruise in Mission: Impossible III. She played Zhen, the only female member of his IMF team. In 2007, she appeared in the Bruce Willis movie Live Free Or Die Hard, the fourth film in the Die Hard franchise.3 and in Balls of Fury.
In 2008, Maggie played fictional Cao Ying, a grand-daughter of the warlord Cao Cao in Three Kingdoms: Resurrection of the Dragon. That is her first Chinese ancient costume performance, for which she had been criticized for her Eurasian appearancecitation needed.
She also stars in the video game in the Need for Speed franchise Need for Speed: Undercover as Inspector Chase Linh who is the player's only contact to the Tri-City Police.4
Personal life
Maggie Q has been in the past romantically linked to actor-singer Daniel Wu, Edison Chen, Satoshi Rivers, Daniel Henney and Japanese soccer player Hidetoshi Nakata.
There were press rumours that she would be caught up in the Edison Chen photo scandal which implicated many Hong Kong female actors and singers5. However, these stories proved untrue when no sex photos of her emerged. Yet speculation still remains as not all photos have been released.
Filmography
References
External links