Maggie Q

Born: May 22 1979
Where: Honolulu, Hawaii, USA

The model-turned actress is best known for her action turns in Mission: Impossible 3 and Die Hard 4.

The daughter of an American father and Vietnamese mother, her parents met while her father was on active service as a soldier in the Far East.

The youngest of five children, she graduated from Mililani High School after the family moved to Hawaii and worked in Japan and Hong Kong as a fashion model.

(she was born Margaret Denise Quigley but was re-christened the short and sharp Maggie Q by the Hong Kong newspaper Apple Daily).

In 1998 she got her first role in a Chinese language TV series and landed her first big screen part when she was cast in the the action thrillers Gen-Y Cops and Naked Weapon.

She played the sexy but vulnerable martial artist assassin Charlene Ching and also landed the titular role of Harmony in the German-Singapore telemovie collaboration Das Haus Der Harmonie.

In 2006, she starred in the horror-thriller The Counting House before making her fully-fledged US debut alongside Tom Cruise in Mission: Impossible 3 as the only female member of the elite IMF team.

The following year she played a computer-hacking extortionist pitched against Bruce Willis in the action sequel Die Hard 4.

Recent work includes the role of the ping pong bat-wielding niece of table tennis guru Master Wong (James Hong) in the comedy spoof Balls of Fury.