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Maggie Q would like to clear up a few misconceptions.
Sure, the 28-year-old actress and model may have a ballerina’s figure, but that doesn’t mean she knows how to dance.
Yes, she has done Hong Kong fight films such as 2002’s Naked Weapon, but don’t assume she’s a trained martial artist.
And, above all, just because Hollywood actor-comedian Justin Long claimed at Die Hard 4.0’s world premiere in Tokyo last week to have relished his love scenes with his sexy co-star, don’t make the mistake of thinking the pair have an onscreen romance.
“Oh, I didn’t have love scenes!” she said with a mix of shock and amusement while in Singapore last Friday to promote the film, which opens here on July 5.
“This is the problem when I come to Asia (laughing) … Did Justin say that?”
After a pause, the actress added with a smile: “Justin’s a funny guy, he’s very sarcastic and witty, and I think that just didn’t translate with the Tokyo press.”
There may be a culture barrier when it comes to US humour, but the same can’t be said of border-straddling Eurasian Q, whose real name is Maggie Quigley.
Born to a Polish-Irish-American father and Vietnamese mother in Honolulu in 1979, the actress — who was sporting blonde hair and a sleeveless shorts-suit —has swiftly carved out a place for herself in both Asia and North America.
Widely known in the region for her turns in 2000’s Gen-X Cops 2 and 2005’s Dragon Heat, Q is now conquering the West thanks to high-profile roles in last year’s Mission: Impossible III, and alongside Bruce Willis in the latest installment in the Die Hard series.
In the latter — known as Live Free or Die Hard in North America — she plays a cyber-terrorist named Mai, whose involvement in an attack on the US puts her in conflict with fellow hacker Farrell (Long) and old-school New York City detective John McClane (Willis).
Die Hard 4.0 is no Hong Kong gongfu epic, but it did offer Q the chance to, well, kick Willis’ ass. “The one thing I hate the most in movies is seeing a woman fight, and it’s not real,” she said of a scene where Q’s Mai knocks McClane senseless with a barrage of kicks and punches.
“It bothers me to no end when it’s stylised and pretty. So, when I saw that this was a fight designed between two men … but (one of them) just happened to be a woman, it excited me.”
Not that the actress was eager to take the blame for a high kick to Willis’ head that left him with 40 stitches.
“I didn’t injure Bruce Willis, my stuntwoman did,” she said with a chuckle of her 52-year-old co-star, whom she described as something of an on-set doting dad for her and Long.
With her name attached to a second summer blockbuster in as many years, Q could be forgiven for seeing herself following Willis’ lead and being typecast as an action star.
The truth is that in the 12 months since Mission: Impossible III was released last summer, the actress has wrapped up two other Hollywood movies — sex thriller The Tourist and ping-pong themed comedy Balls of Fury — that have yet to hit screens.
What’s more, fans in Asia shouldn’t be too concerned that Q’s rising profile in Tinseltown means she’s turning her back on the industry where her career began.
“I am concentrating on Hollywood but I am not abandoning my audience in Asia,” she said, citing her upcoming role in the Mandarin period epic Three Kingdoms: Resurrection of the Dragon, which is due out next year. “I am who I am in Hollywood because of my name in Asia, and I’ll never forget that.”
Still, as Q found out on the set of Die Hard 4.0, there’s no substitute for good ol’ American ingenuity — at least when it comes in the form of on-set practical jokes.
Asked in the interview to recall any behind-the-scenes hi-jinks, Q described a caper she and Long pulled on Willis. “There’s one car chase in the movie where the car is turning corners and it’s flying this way and that,” she said. “And Justin, being new to the action genre, thought it’d be funny if he pretended to be sick.”
After confessing to Willis his unease at shooting the scene, Long had Q and another accomplice smuggle some cooked oatmeal to him through the car’s window.
“When Bruce turns to get a touch-up, he downs it,” Q said with obvious glee. “They start the scene and Justin pretends to throw up all over himself. And Bruce was like: ‘Ugh! Oh god! Cut! Somebody clean this guy up!’”
No wonder Q was so anxious to deny those love scene stories ... - TODAY/fa
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