In honor of the release of The Protégé, Maggie Q joined us for an episode of Collider Ladies Night to retrace her steps in film and television, and to discuss the key moments that contributed to paving the way to where she is today. We discussed her early years working in Asia and her experience headlining The CW’s Nikita, but another big title on her filmography we absolutely had to hit was Mission: Impossible III.
The J.J. Abrams directed installment saw Tom Cruise’s Ethan Hunt returning to the IMF and working alongside a team that included Luther Stickell (Ving Rhames), Declan Gormley (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) and Q’s Zhen Lei. A somewhat small role in the film perhaps, but one that made a big impression with fans still calling for her return to the franchise, 15 years after release.
During our Ladies Night conversation, we got a bit hooked on the topic of valuable leaders, so when we hit the Mission: Impossible III portion of the chat, I had to ask about the impression Cruise made on her given he’s number one on the call sheet and also works as a producer on the Mission: Impossible films. Q explained:
“Tom’s a leader. And again, when you work with people at his level, there is a reason they are where they are, period. There’s no question. He’s not my best friend so I’m not talking about him personally, but I am talking about him as a professional. On set his enthusiasm never waivers. I’ve never seen it waiver. I’ve never seen somebody who loved what they did more and I’ve also never seen somebody who was so encouraging of those around him in the thing that he loves.”
Q also made a point to clarify:
“It’s not something that you actually see every day. Maybe for people they’ll hear that and go, ‘Well, yeah, he’s one of the biggest movie stars in the world. Of course he loves it!’ It’s like, that is not true [laughs], because there are big movie stars who don’t love what they do or don’t show that they love what they do and aren’t as encouraging or great leaders the way he is.”
Looking for an example of how Cruise was an exemplary leader on the set of Mission: Impossible III? Q’s got a good one. She empahsized how inclusive Cruise is and recalled:
“When I got on that film, the call sheet was [long] and I was [lower down]. I was working with some of the best people in the business and it was so exciting and they were so great. I remember the first day I got to set in Italy, I was looking for my trailer and I couldn’t find it. I went to one of the PAs and I said, ‘Oh, I can’t find my trailer.’ And she’s like, ‘Oh, this is your trailer.’ And I’m like, ‘Oh no, that’s not my trailer. It’s a mistake,’ because I’m a very small fish and I have a very small trailer in my contract.”
Q decided to grab her bags, take them to hair and makeup, and get that process started while the team located the right trailer, one that she thought had to be far smaller given that contract. But then, Cruise’s producing partner stepped in:
“Tom’s producing partner comes in and she says, ‘Hey, Maggie, I heard there was some confusion with your trailer.’ And I said, ‘Oh, there is. They have the wrong one for me and I’m just waiting for them to give me the right trailer.’ She said, ‘No, I checked it. That’s your trailer.’ And I was like, ‘That’s not possible!’ And she said, ‘Oh no, Tom came yesterday to check it out and make sure that everything was A-OK and they had your contracted trailer in the basecamp with all the rest of the trailers and he said, absolutely not. You’re getting rid of this and you’re getting her the same trailer everyone else has because she’s a part of this movie and I don’t want her coming to set feeling like she’s less than. It’s not okay.’ And so I’m like, ‘Is this a joke?’ And I go in and it’s got a staircase in it and another story, and there’s a fireplace and I’m like, ‘What is happening right now?’ So he went out of his way to make sure that as the lowest, I’ll call it, priority on the call sheet with all the names that I was working with on the movie, that I felt like I was included.”
Looking for more stories about collaborators who inspired Q along the way? You’re going to want to check out our uncut Collider Ladies Night conversation in podcast form below: