MAGGIE Q IS perched on the edge of a cheap, flowery sofa in a spartan work space in a nondescript Causeway Bay office block. Dressed in tartan trousers, dirty white trainers and a purple shirt with rolled-up sleeves, the model-turned-actress looks a million miles from the glamour girl pictured on fashion runways and society parties.
But in this drab setting, 22-year-old Q (real name Quigley) is more animated and energised than her steely faced public persona would ever betray. Next to her is American actor and producer John Cooney, with whom she is rehearsing lines under the watchful gaze of playwright David Pinner. Q will make her stage debut in Pinner's world premiere of All Hallow's Eve, at the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts on November 27.
With rehearsal over, she scurries to the bathroom to do her make-up and returns with her hair neatly parted across her lean face. Settling into a chair, she begins speaking effusively about her latest project, a chilling psychological thriller about a disjointed family haunted by ghosts and memories. 'It's a great new challenge,' says Q, who plays Cooney's 16-year-old sister. 'I've never worked with a script like David's, where you play with words. It's a totally new experience.'
Q's few acting roles to date have been on TV and in film and she says the chance to tread the boards in Hong Kong was too good to refuse. She admires screen stars such as Nicole Kidman who have forgone huge movie paydays for stage roles. 'I always thought somebody who could do theatre and film was so unbelievably talented that it was not something I could do,' says Q. 'There's no end to the challenge in theatre.'
It's certainly a bold move for Pinner and Q, who has no formal training as a stage actress. Although four weeks of rehearsals were scheduled, Q has been practising with Cooney since September. 'He was trying to get my theatrical skills down. David was worried about me knowing the little things: what's upstage, what's downstage.'
Yet the role is the realisation of a dream shared by Q and her school speech and debate teacher, former actress and Hollywood bit-part player Wendy Stazkow, who told Q just before graduation:'If you don't get into acting, I'm going to kill you.' Says Q: 'She would die if she could see me now. She was very against film. She would adamantly say acting in theatre is nothing like film.'