Queen of action

Maggie Q is an "action flick chick" - and proud of it.

The 34-year-old US actress is best known for playing tough-as-nails femme fatales on both the big and small screens.

Her most prolific role to date was the titular rogue spy-assassin in the hit TV series Nikita. She has also starred in an array of action blockbusters like Live Free Or Die Hard, Mission: Impossible III and Priest.

Now Q, whose real name is Margaret Denise Quigley, has joined the cast of yet another actioner.

Now showing here, Divergent revolves around a distant future where people are divided into distinct factions based on human virtues. She plays Tori Wu, a Dauntless faction member who administers the aptitude test for heroine Tris Prior (Shailene Woodley, right), alerts her of her dangerous divergent status and warns her of the impending peril.

Q, who looked bohemian at the recent Divergent press junket in a fur-like vest worn over a slip dress with beachy waves and black nail polish, talked about her latest movie with The New Paper.

Is action a requirement when you are taking on new roles?

Maggie Q: I like to put myself in a box that I can't get out of.

I would be afraid of being typecasted if I had nothing else to offer. I guess it's better to be known for something than to be known for nothing.

It's a box I'm sure I'll have to climb out of at some point, like I'm sure (US actress) Jennifer Aniston doesn't want to do another romantic comedy.

It came natural to me. I was a very physical person - I was an athlete - before I got into the business. And then when I got noticed, I fell into that world.

I asked a director once, when I was 21 or 22, why he wanted me for all these strong roles.

He said: "Maggie, it's not about the physicality. Anyone can do physicality. I can go to any dojo (a place in which martial arts are practised) in the world and pull out a martial artist and put him in a movie and it would work.

"But strength comes from a much deeper place than physicality and the strength in you is obviously real - we add physicality to it and then you have believability."

Was acting something you had always wanted to do?

I never thought this was possible for me. I loved movies, but never looked at them and thought that it was what I wanted to do. I just appreciated what I saw.

I thought you have to be the creative type. I'm not from a creative family that would support me to go off and make that bad decision, but I'm here.

Would you return to Asia to work?

I definitely would, but it depends on the script.

I've been in the US for almost 10 years now and I've gone back to Asia maybe twice since then - once to do an epic war movie Three Kingdoms: Resurrection Of The Dragon (2008).

It took director Daniel Lee 14 years to write it and he changed one of the characters in the history from a boy to a woman just so I could play it.

With so much hype surrounding the Divergent franchise, were you ever worried it wouldn't deliver?

We lucked out with this one. You can get so worried about the cheese factor of things.

Worrying always comes up, but once you see the final product, you're like, "Yay, we didn't screw it up!"

What about the Divergent role that appealed to you?

I have loved Tori since the beginning. I thought she was really fun.

It's interesting to take on a character like this because it's almost like a TV decision, where you have to have some faith that there will be growth with the character, that she's going somewhere special, or that you can bring something to her that nobody else can.

Get The New Paper for more stories.