Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#1984
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Maggie Q works on versatility rather than volume, and the catalogue keeps proving that the quieter choice was the correct one.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Maggie Q appears in 18 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Maggie. The Family Plan is the clearest case: a film rated 7.2 by our editors, where the performance carries weight the script only implies.
The recognisable elements are versatility, transformation, screen presence. Watch two of these films back to back and the method separates from the material — the same instrument, tuned differently for action, comedy, adventure. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Simon Cellan Jones, Neil LaBute, Martin Campbell and others, Maggie Q helped set a standard other performers now audition against. Awards bodies have been slower than the work, which is usually the sign of a career built on choices rather than campaigns.
The Family Plan (2023) as Gwen · Divergent (2014) as Tori · Mission: Impossible III (2006) as Zhen
Career snapshot
Ranked #1984 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
18
2001–2023
Career length
22 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.2
The Family Plan
Average Nutevio score
6.0
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.2
The Family Plan
Most frequent director
Robert Schwentke
2 films together
Longest collaboration
2×
With Robert Schwentke
Most common genre
Action
11 titles
Average runtime
1h 47m
Across catalogue work
Golden Globe wins
—
Unknown
Nutevio metric
Ten weighted categories, applied identically to everyone we cover.
Nutevio Performer Score
6.8
out of 10
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio metric
Cultural impact and legacy, measured separately from craft — how far the work travelled once it left the cinema.
Nutevio Influence Score
6.3
out of 10
A quieter influence — felt inside the films rather than across the industry.
How far the work travelled past the people who saw it first.
What survives once the release-week conversation has burned off.
Institutional acknowledgement, weighted but never decisive.
Years of chosen, relevant work rather than years merely employed.
Statuettes, read as evidence rather than verdict.
Roles named without needing the film named alongside them.
Directors who wrote parts because this performer existed.
The reading other performers now have to answer.
Actor DNA
A fingerprint derived from the roles themselves — register, range and the kind of film they carry.
The shape of a career
Every performance plotted in time. Hover a point to read the title behind it.
Peak years
Where the scores, the awards and the sheer volume of work agree with each other.
Best decade
2000s
6.2 average MV
The 2000s are where the work and the material meet. Deception, New York, I Love You, Live Free or Die Hard — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2000s
6.2
Across 7 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2000s
6.2
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
2000s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. Deception, New York, I Love You, Live Free or Die Hard.
Most productive era
2000s
7 films
The busiest stretch of the catalogue — volume that reads as appetite rather than availability.
Range, mapped
Genres down the side, decades across the top. Warmer cells mean stronger titles.
| Genre | 2000s | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 6.01 film | — | 5.31 film |
| Action | 6.64 films | 6.34 films | 6.63 films |
| Thriller | 6.53 films | 6.41 film | 6.32 films |
| Comedy | 6.04 films | 3.91 film | 6.32 films |
| Crime | 6.02 films | 3.91 film | 6.61 film |
| Romance | 6.01 film | — | — |
| Horror | — | 5.91 film | 5.63 films |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
2001Rush Hour 2
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Girl in Car.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
2023The Family Plan
7.2 on the Nutevio scale, the top of the catalogue for this performer. Weighing billing against the film's own quality, this is the point where everything aligned at once.
Most recent film
2023Fear the Night
The current state of the argument, as Tess.
Our order
Every performance in the catalogue, ordered by Nutevio Score.
Every title
Filter by genre or decade, and compare any two titles side by side.
18 of 18 films
as Gwen
Directed by Simon Cellan Jones
as Anna
Directed by Martin Campbell
as Tori
Directed by Neil Burger
as Tess
Directed by Neil LaBute
as Zhen
Directed by J.J. Abrams
From the library
Every movie and TV credit stored for this name in the Nutevio catalogue — filter by media, role or sort by rating.
Loading credits…
The defining work
#1
Gwen
The Family Plan (2023)
Performance score7.6
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Gwen gives Maggie Q a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Anna
The Protégé (2021)
Performance score7.3
The Protégé asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Anna is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Tori
Divergent (2014)
Performance score6.8
Divergent asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Tori is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Tess
Fear the Night (2023)
Performance score6.7
Fear the Night asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Tess is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movieStart here
A guided path through the work, ordered so each film explains the next.
Best entry point
as Gwen
Start here. The Family Plan is the clearest statement of what Maggie Q does — accessible, 118 minutes, and rated 7.2 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Maggie at the most legible performance, then move forward in time so each film reads as a response to the one before it rather than a repetition of it.
Mission: Impossible III (2006)
Keeps the action register of The Family Plan but asks for a colder reading of it.
Divergent (2014)
Keeps the action register of Mission: Impossible III but asks for a colder reading of it.
The Protégé (2021)
Keeps the action register of Divergent but asks for a colder reading of it.
Fear the Night (2023)
Keeps the action register of The Protégé but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Robert Schwentke
Director
2 films together
Notably Insurgent
Brett Ratner
Director
1 film together
Notably Rush Hour 2
Frank Coraci
Director
1 film together
Notably Around the World in 80 Days
J.J. Abrams
Director
1 film together
Notably Mission: Impossible III
Robert Ben Garant
Director
1 film together
Notably Balls of Fury
Len Wiseman
Director
1 film together
Notably Live Free or Die Hard
Fatih Akin
Director
1 film together
Notably New York, I Love You
Scott Stewart
Director
1 film together
Notably Priest
Neil Burger
Director
1 film together
Notably Divergent
Robert Schwartzman
Director
1 film together
Notably The Argument
Jeff Wadlow
Director
1 film together
Notably Fantasy Island
Darren Lynn Bousman
Director
1 film together
Notably Death of Me
Martin Campbell
Director
1 film together
Notably The Protégé
Neil LaBute
Director
1 film together
Notably Fear the Night
Simon Cellan Jones
Director
1 film together
Notably The Family Plan
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Robert Schwentke
Director
2 films together · 6.3 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
InsurgentSimon Cellan Jones
Director
1 film together · 7.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Family PlanNeil Burger
Director
1 film together · 6.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
DivergentJ.J. Abrams
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Mission: Impossible IIIBrett Ratner
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Rush Hour 2Len Wiseman
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Live Free or Die HardMartin Campbell
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The ProtégéFatih Akin
Director
1 film together · 6.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
New York, I Love YouFrank Coraci
Director
1 film together · 6.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Around the World in 80 DaysNeil LaBute
Director
1 film together · 5.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Fear the NightScott Stewart
Director
1 film together · 5.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
PriestJeff Wadlow
Director
1 film together · 5.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Fantasy IslandRobert Schwartzman
Director
1 film together · 5.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The ArgumentRobert Ben Garant
Director
1 film together · 5.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Balls of FuryDarren Lynn Bousman
Director
1 film together · 5.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Death of MeSix degrees
Follow the thread outward — director, film, co-star, and the film after that.
Categories of our own
Six editorial categories we apply to every performer we cover.
Most rewatchable
The Family Plan
as Gwen
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
New York, I Love You
as Call Girl
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
The Family Plan
as Gwen
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Deception
as Tina at the Rhigha Royal
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
The Family Plan
as Gwen
If the career had to be argued in a single scene, our editors would pick one from this film and rest the case.
In their films' words
“You can build a whole film around a performer who knows when not to speak. Maggie Q has known it for a long time.”
Head to head
Put two careers on the same scale and see where the argument actually sits.
Ours alone
Recognitions handed out by this desk, on criteria no awards body uses.
Career Achievement
Awarded
22 years of relevant work — not merely a long career, but a long career of choices.
Modern Classic Performer
Awarded
Defining performances delivered inside the last twenty-five years, in films already being taught rather than merely remembered.
Action Legend
Awarded
11 catalogue titles in action, each one a reference point for the films that followed.
Our desk
Best ending, best opening, best twist and the rest — categories we apply to everyone we cover.
Best ending
The Family Plan
as Gwen
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Live Free or Die Hard
as Mai Linh
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
New York, I Love You
as Call Girl
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Fantasy Island
as Gwen Olsen
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
The Family Plan
as Gwen
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
The Family Plan
as Gwen
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
New York, I Love You
as Call Girl
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
The Protégé
as Anna
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
If you like this performer
Michael Caine
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Matt Damon
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Morgan Freeman
Built a career in the same territory: action and crime
Jamie Harris
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Elliot Page
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Christian Bale
Built a career in the same territory: action and crime
Have your say
Community
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Reference
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