Posted in: Amazon Studios, TV | Tagged: ballard, Bosch, nikita

Ballard: How "Nikita" Prepared Maggie Q for "Bosch" Spinoff Series

Maggie Q shares how four seasons of Nikita prepared her for the lead role in Prime Video's upcoming "Bosch" spinoff series Ballard.

In an interview with TV Insider ahead of the premiere of Ballard, Maggie Q talked about how starring on Nikita fifteen years ago informed her approach to being the lead on a long-running TV series. When asked which of her roles she wished she could have played for longer, she replied, "None of them." She had led Nikita for four full seasons on the CW when network television produced long seasons, and as any actor and crew member would attest, the work was long and frequently gruelling, especially when action was involved.

"I enjoyed Nikita so much after four years," Maggie Q shared with TV Insider. "I was so burnt out because I approached it with movie energy, and I approached it very idealistic, and I was so naive to think that I was going to be able to carry the show for 10 months and know how to do that. And one of the producers, he had actually worked on Buffy for seven years and saw what Sarah Michelle Gellar had gone through during that time, and sat me down, took me to lunch before we started, and said, "Maggie, do you know what you're in for?" And I'm like, "I'm a hard worker. I got a great work ethic." Blah blah blah. You know, thinking that I could just will it, you know, and give everything, and that then it would be okay. And the reality is I was too young to know how to pace myself and where to give and where to pull back and how to do that. And now that I'm older and I've been number one several times, I now have the experience and the wisdom to know how to do that. And so with Ballard, it's been invaluable because without that, I would never know where the push and pull began and ended.

Nikita was the second television adaptation of the 1997 French film that starred Anne Parillaud, the first being the 1997 syndicated TV series La Femme Nikita starring Peta Wilson. The 2010 CW series is arguably the best version of the story, being the most fully realised with the most satisfying ending. Maggie Q cut her teeth starring in action movies in Hong Kong in the early 2000s before returning to the US to work in film and television, and Nikita was her first leading role in a TV series. Ballard is her latest genre series where she's the lead.

'The one-hour drama is the hardest job in Hollywood, she said. "It is really, really exhausting."

Ballard premieres on Prime Video on July 9th.

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