Serial Killer Reveal, Strangling Scene

SPOILER ALERT: This interview contains major spoilers from the first season of “Ballard,” now streaming on Prime Video.

Over the course of her near-three-decade career, Maggie Q has become synonymous with playing kickass women. After making a name for herself in Hong Kong — where she was scouted by Jackie Chan’s management company and then trained as a potential action star — at the turn of the millennium, Q rose to fame in the U.S. for starring opposite Tom Cruise in “Mission: Impossible III” and Bruce Willis in “Live Free or Die Hard,” and for breathing new life into the vengeful titular spy-assassin on The CW’s “Nikita.”

Q’s latest role, as an LAPD detective in Prime Video’s “Bosch” spinoff “Ballard,” feels like an amalgamation of the action heroes and strait-laced law enforcement officials who have defined her body of work. In fact, according to Q, executive producer Michael Connelly, who wrote the original “Bosch” novels, was looking for “someone like Maggie” to play the role. He got his wish. (Connelly and Michael Alamino adapted “Ballard” for television.)

First introduced in the series finale of “Bosch: Legacy” and inspired by real-life detective Mitzi Roberts, Renée Ballard is the leader of a team of quirky civilians and disillusioned cops investigating cold cases around Los Angeles. While she was initially siloed off into the new, underfunded division as retribution for filing an unsuccessful HR claim against a superior, Ballard’s team’s investigation into a string of seemingly unconnected murders — including the suspicious death of a councilman’s sister — points to the existence of a perilous conspiracy within the LAPD and a ruthless serial killer, who ends up murdering one of Ballard’s teammates before being captured in the finale. (Read the Q&A for the killer’s identity.)

Greg Gayne/Prime Video

“I thought the finale was just bananas, just reveal after reveal,” Q tells Variety. “I liked that it was somebody not only that you didn’t suspect, but sometimes their reasons for doing these things are a lot smaller than you think. They’re not bloodthirsty vampires; they’re traumatized people. That’s one of the things that I learned during the process of training for this show that was very surprising to me.”

Calling from her home in Hawaii, Q opens up about the “exhausting” but “rewarding” experience of playing Ballard (including that “painful” fight scene), how that cliffhanger sets up a potential second season which may include Titus Welliver’s Bosch — and how she’s overcome Hollywood’s limited understanding of racial identity.

When viewers meet Ballard in this spinoff, she’s still grappling with the fallout from her allegations against a former superior, Detective Olivas (Ricardo Chavira), who tried to assault her at a party. She also hasn’t completely dealt with the loss of her father, who died in a tragic surfing accident decades ago. How did all of that emotional baggage inform the way you thought about the character?

I think it’s true of people who are in hero roles, whether it’s a detective or a firefighter or a cop or any of these people who go out into the world in a very brave way and try to make the world a safer place, or to give people peace. They have their traumas for sure, because there has to be some type of scissor or blade that’s pushing them out into the world and motivating them in a real way. Ballard has a conversation with the police-appointed shrink that she has to go to, and the shrink is bringing up all this stuff like, “It’s so interesting, these parallels in your life between the cold cases and your dad’s death being a mystery.” And that pisses Ballard off. She really doesn’t want to face the question marks that put her out in the world, but I think that baggage is weirdly heavy — but very motivating — for these types of personalities.

Tyler Golden/Prime Video

I’d imagine that physicality is your entry point for most, if not all, of the characters you’ve played. What do you think can be revealed about Ballard through the way she moves through the world — but also the way she fights? How does she compare to past women you’ve played?

She’s more of an internal badass. She gets herself in situations where she has to defend herself, and most of the action is defensive, unless it’s chasing a perp or something like that. But with defensive action, it’s interesting, because you really get insight into the way women have to move in the world. It’s not that men don’t deal with violence — they absolutely do. But women, we’re so much more vulnerable of a population. We have vulnerabilities that men really don’t have — and I mean this in a practical sense: We’re weaker in that way. That’s why there’s so much targeted violence towards women. With Ballard, she’s moving in a man’s world, in a very dangerous world, and the defensive violence that comes at her is very parallel to everything else that’s coming at her too. It’s just a physical manifestation of all that she’s dealing with.

Courtesy of Jessica Brooks/Prime Video

All of Ballard’s action sequences feel intense, but the fight scene that took my breath away happens at the end of Episode 5. Ballard can’t breathe in her dream and realizes that Anthony Driscoll, the ex-cop who she has been trying to catch for running guns and drugs between a cartel and the LAPD, has broken into her house and is now trying to choke her to death.

That was a very hard fight to shoot — and not because I haven’t done more challenging physical feats in my career. I’ve done things way more challenging than that. To reach a realism with that attack, you have to go further than you’re comfortable going. I remember we shot it all night, and the whole thing was just literally and figuratively painful. But I remember something about the set that night, which is very unusual.

Because of the type of action and violence that we were portraying, it was dead quiet. We had a female director who was a very sensitive soul, and it hurt her a lot to watch this, and I think it hurt the whole crew. The silence on set told me everything about how everyone felt about what we were doing — it was important to portray, but very hard to get in the shoes of and make happen because this is something that happens all the time to vulnerable people. To get that reality, I had to keep pushing it, and that was very devastating.

There are times where by the end of the fight, I’m hyperventilating, obviously because of the physicality. But I remember that I was so overcome by the idea that people want to hurt people in this way, and I couldn’t stop hyperventilating. I just had tears pouring out of my face because, not to sound like a cheese ball, but you really can feel the reality of what we were doing and what people actually go through. I think when you cross that line, it’s very uncomfortable.

And on top of that, you then had to perform a tracheotomy on the guy!

Oh my God. When I finished that night, I really thought this might be the most exhausted I’ve ever been in my life. Because not only were we doing and portraying things that nobody wants to do, but then we got into this technical part of it. I had two pages of post-fight dialogue, and to keep the level of panic at a certain level that never dipped, so that you had the reality, was just so crazy. Obviously, we had medical consultants there, we had the action guys, so everyone was coming through and going, “Hey, Maggie, that’s great, but can you do this?” “Can you move slightly this way?” And then of course, the cameraman has his own demands: “I can’t really see what you’re doing while you’re doing it.” I’m like, “Oh my gosh, I’m going to lose it!” — because everybody had a demand that night so that we could portray it in the right way.

Courtesy of Greg Gayne/Prime Video

Titus Welliver has described Bosch and Ballard as kindred spirits because they see so much of themselves in each other. What is your take on what Bosch represents in Ballard’s life?

Bosch feels almost like Ballard’s alter-ego, meaning that when she gets into a hairy predicament and she’s cornered, she reaches out to Harry. Harry’s the guy who she knows will break the rules, who will color outside the lines. Ballard would love to be that person, but she says to him, in that finale episode of “Bosch: Legacy,” “You don’t have the consequences I do. You just don’t. I’m rank and file. I have people I have to answer to, and you get to swan in and out now and break rules.”

I think it’s amazing that she has this mutual respect and trust with this guy who, through all his faults and all his unconventional ways of doing police work, she is able to rely on when it really matters. She acts differently with Bosch, and I hope you saw it in the show. When she’s with Bosch, there’s a little bit of an ease because she has an equal in front of her. She can be a little looser, and be herself, and say things she wouldn’t say in front of her team because she’s supposed to be leading them — that’s a very different responsibility. Bosch represents almost like a haven for her, a safe place that she can go to — not only for work, but I think just as a trusted friend.

These kinds of decisions are above your pay grade, but considering that “Bosch: Legacy” has been canceled, have you and the creative team had conversations about how Bosch could be folded into Ballard’s story going forward?

I personally would love that. I make my suggestions to the showrunners, to Michael and to the producers, and they’ve been very generous with me in terms of giving me input beyond what I deserve or that’s above my pay grade. They will still hear me out on absolutely anything that I want to put forward, so that’s been cool.

I’ve even suggested that some of the characters from “Bosch” make appearances in our show as well, just because I really like everyone on that show, and I think they’re quality people. When I heard that their show ended, I had tears for them, because I know what that’s like, having a family for 10 years and having to walk away. So I think it would be cool to see Bosch appear in “Ballard,” because the universe then never dies. But I also think that these showrunners are trying to set themselves apart and do something that is different from what “Bosch” did. I think “Ballard” is a bit more elevated, just because we’re moving, obviously, into a more modern television world, so we obviously have to keep up with that.

If it were up to people who are new to the universe, they would probably want to see less of that, if I’m being honest. I’m just a very sentimental person, so I look at Titus with deep gratitude, because he is someone who laid the groundwork and had so much success building this universe. And now, I get to build off of what he built. He’s just so gracious and kind, and he’s been like a Harry Bosch to me. He was there for me every single step of the way, whether it was to vent or for advice, like, “How am I going to lead a show again?” So if it were up to me, I would love to see him swan in and out of our show.

Courtesy of Tyler Golden/Prime Video

The final two episodes of the season revealed that Gary, the father of councilman Jake Pearlman (Q’s former “Nikita” co-star, Noah Bean), was the elusive serial killer who targeted women he deemed “not-ladylike” for prioritizing their careers over marriage and children. He even killed Ballard’s teammate, reserve officer Ted Rawls (Michael Mosley). From a creative standpoint, what did you all want to accomplish with this season-long storyline?

I think it owes a lot of truth to what I’ve seen in the crime world. A lot of these guys hide in plain sight. Everyone wants to believe that a serial killer is hiding in someone’s basement, and that’s not true, right? They’re out in the world, they’re charming, they’re charismatic, they are unexpectedly social.

I did a show years ago [called “Stalker,” which ran for one season on CBS] that was about people who stalk people, and it’s not like a sexual thing or an attraction thing. It’s more of a time or a place thing, where a person has unresolved trauma and then they see something in this person that they believe. It’s obviously very paranoid and delusional, but they see something in the lady that works at the gas station that reminds them of their mom who died 30 years ago. That pain is still there, so they’ve got this attachment. Serial killers similarly have these traumas that end up playing out on innocent people that they hold onto for lifetimes.

There have been so many people that Mitzi has caught in her career who were just living their life. One of the notable serial killers that she caught, they connected him DNA-wise to 60 murders, which he confessed to, and then he confessed to 36 more. So this guy has killed almost a hundred people, and he was just out there in the world. We wanted to spotlight how people can get away with things and leave gaps between crimes so that they can remain undetected. But there’s always a through line; there’s always something that’s going to connect these things.

We also based the Gary Pearlman murders on a couple cold cases Mitzi had where she connected DNA on unrelated cases — exactly like what Ballard did in the show — and then they were able to connect one guy to things that were previously unrelated. And, to me, my gosh, that’s such great detective work. It’s the epitome of what their job is. And when they accomplished that, I can’t imagine how good that must feel for them.

Courtesy of Elizabeth Morris/Prime Video

At the end of the finale, Ballard is arrested for the murder of Olivas, who we know she didn’t shoot but who we learn died of a gunshot. How does that cliffhanger set up a potential second season?

The good news is we have a writers’ room already, so that’s very positive. That does not mean we’re going to get greenlit for a second season! I wish it did, but I’ve had writers’ room start and then get ended. But the good news is that we are breaking the second season, which is very exciting.

If we’re just looking at [Olivas’ murderer], we’re like, “Well, this is the cartel, obviously, right? The cartel’s going to want to kill him. They have a vested interest in killing him, and Ballard really doesn’t.” But I think we’re going to dig not too far because the whole first season was about Olivas [and what he did to Ballard and her new partner, Zamira Parker], but in the beginning of the second season, we’re really going to reveal really how dirty this guy was. We’re going to reveal who was behind his killing right away, which is going to be great because we can’t keep Ballard in jail — as fun as that would be for me, because it would be not exhausting. I said to the writers — I begged them — “Please keep me in jail just for a little bit.” They’re like, “We can’t. You gotta get out!”

You’ve been quietly chipping away at outdated preconceptions of Asian Americans for years, but that battle has been hard-fought. In 2008, you spoke about how 90% of the roles that you were auditioning for were meant for white actresses. A few years prior, you had American agents who thought it was “weird” that you had begun your career in Asia. How have you navigated those conversations of race in the industry?

I remember that time very specifically. It wasn’t a global marketplace yet, for whatever reason. I mean, it was, but I don’t think the Americans quite got it yet. I think that they realized that there were more people in different parts of the world, but Hollywood’s such a bubble that I don’t think they ever thought that it would matter to them. So I came onto the scene, and I have to tell you: It was just so interesting the way that you’re looked at, and the way that you’re treated and the way that they box you.

I am American. I grew up in Hawaii, so it’s very multicultural. My whole upbringing was [being surrounded by] different races, and everybody was either mixed race or a minority of some kind, so I never even thought that I was either different or rare in any way. I just seemed like a normal girl from an island where we all kind of look very similar. And then you go to Hollywood and there’s this race conversation that starts to happen and you just go, “Wait, what is happening? If I go into a room and I want to fight for something, then I should be eligible for that fight.” But I wasn’t even able to get in those rooms.

All the stereotypical Asian roles came to me — of course they did — and I would say no to those things. And then I would try to get in the rooms where they didn’t want to see me; I had to fight to get into those rooms and compete with these people that they didn’t think I was in the same category as. And that was very confusing to me, because why would it not be about talent? Obviously, if you’re making a historical movie, there are certain parameters you have to follow.

But what people really don’t say, which I’m going to say, is that [Asian Americans] have the lowest representation of anyone in Hollywood, and we always have. But we’re Asians, so we put our head down, we work really hard and we prove ourselves in that way, which I think is a beautiful quality. But at the same time, we’re not loud about the fact that we’ve been excluded from the conversation for a very long time. I think the way that I approached it in my career was, “I’m just going to do the work really well, and I’m going to get roles from people where they would’ve never considered me before.”

Was there a particular project where you felt you were being considered for a role regardless of race or ethnicity?

“Nikita” was a big one. When Peter Roth, who ran Warner Bros. for a long time, came to me, I went to his office, and I said, “Why do you want me for this? Anne Parillaud won the French Oscar for ‘Nikita’ the film, and then Bridget Fonda [in ‘Point of No Return’], and then Peta Wilson [in ‘La Femme Nikita,’ the first TV remake]. It’s been a white girl every time. Why me?” And he said, “Maggie, I’m not looking for a race. I’m looking for the best actress, and you are her. I know this.”

He could’ve been lying to me, but I was so happy to hear that he believed that I had what it took to not only make this show what it was, but also carry the show. He wasn’t doing me some kind of favor or doing an ethnic casting for the sake of doing an ethnic casting. That really bothers me more than anything else; that bothers me more than even being excluded. Don’t pat me on the head and do me favors. I don’t need you to do that. I want to earn my place because that’s what moves us forward. Me being good at what I do — that moves Asians forward, not [an exec] casting me because they’re worried about, “Oh gosh, I don’t want to be labeled as a studio that doesn’t include this or that.” Throw that out the window! Why don’t you just cast who’s qualified?

That’s how I’ve approached my whole career, really, because if I go into a room and I fight for it, and I don’t get it on my merit, that’s OK with me. It means I wasn’t good enough and I need to do better. It doesn’t mean that the whole industry has to change for me. It means that I just have to keep doing better, and then I become an undeniable option. So, yes, I like initiatives that are inclusive, and all those things are super important. But I also think that we should never, ever rely on other people to determine our futures. I’ve tried to keep the race conversation to a minimum and just go, “Maggie, just be the best that you can be.”

That being said, it’s very exciting how it is a different industry than 25 years ago. I used to walk into a room and every single executive would ask me how I learned my English, and why is it so good? I’m talking about people of high intelligence that make massive salaries saying some of the stupidest things I’ve ever heard, without any thought to, “This is America. It’s a melting pot. What are you talking about? Why would you be American, and I wouldn’t be? How is that even logical?” So that stuff was happening for so many years, and to see it change now for people and to see Asians be in the room every time now and on every show — that’s awesome. That was the whole goal.

This interview has been edited and condensed.

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