Maggie Q Wasn’t Looking to Lead Another TV Show — But Then ‘Ballard’ Came Along
[This story contains mild spoilers from the first two episodes of Ballard.]
Sometimes when you’re not looking for something, forces of nature beckon you to the opportunity you didn’t know you needed. That’s what happened to Maggie Q with Ballard.
In the Bosch spinoff, which released all of its 10-episode first season on Wednesday, Q plays Detective Renée Ballard in the next phase of the Prime Video universe. She says she believes that fate was at work when she got sent the scripts to play the Ballard lead, who was introduced in the finale of the first Bosch spinoff that recently concluded, Bosch: Legacy with star Titus Welliver.
“I was on a flight to New Zealand and was sent the first six or seven scripts,” Q explains to The Hollywood Reporter. “I said to my agents, ‘I will let you know when I land what I think.’ It was a 14-hour flight and sadly, most things you read, you don’t like — if you’re discerning. So with no expectation, I dove in on the plane and I remember immediately going, ‘I really like this. It’s a page turner.’”
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Q says she had her hesitations, but they weren’t related to the material. “I honestly was not looking to lead a show again. It was not on my list — I was not looking for this. So it makes it even more special that it did find me, especially because it wasn’t something I was looking to do,” she says. “I totally understand what they’re trying to do with her and why her journey would matter to people; why they might want to follow this woman was very clear. And that doesn’t happen very often.”
When audiences first meet Ballard in the three-episode premiere, the detective is running full speed through Los Angeles — pump-action shotgun in hand — to chase down a criminal who has eluded LAPD’s finest. Viewers may be struck by Q’s physical capabilities, as this character is no shrinking violet. Ballard puts herself in dangerous situations to go toe-to-toe with some of the city’s most violent criminals in order to seek justice for cold case victims who can’t advocate for themselves. But Q has several martial arts films under her belt (she was trained by Jackie Chan), as well as action-espionage TV series such as Nikita,Designated Survivor and Stalker.
“It is a different kind of physical demand,” however, Q explains. “The physical demand of a cop is different than if you are doing a Marvel movie. There are no wires, no acrobatics. It is grounded action, but very exhausting action. The reality of the fast-paced lifestyle in this profession is that it can be very exhilarating. I think the action is placed well [in the show], it’s grounded and not gratuitous.”
Some of that action translates into chase sequences, whether on wheels or on foot. But it all moves the story forward, she says. “There’s something very exhilarating about justice when it’s about to be served, and how does that happen?” says Q. “Especially for Ballard as a woman. She is incredibly physical, and I am sure that is part of what she had to prove, being in a department of predominantly men. Not only showing the goods and proving that she is good at what she does, but I am sure she worked very hard on the physicality so she’s not left behind.”
So though the appeal had dulled initially for Q when it came to leading another show, the lure was too strong for her to resist embodying thecharacter from the novel pages written by best-selling author Michael Connelly. And the creator of the Bosch/Ballard couldn’t agree more.
“We talked to a few people when we started out,” author and executive producer Connelly tells THR. “Amazon was very involved in the casting and, I don’t remember the exact details, but more or less we were told, ‘Hey, Maggie Q is looking for a project. Do you think she’s right for this and do you want to meet her?’ And that’s really all it took — because it’s Maggie Q. Then we met with her and — I don’t often say this, and you probably talked about this with Titus — but you kind of know it in the room when you’re with the right person. And that’s what happened this time.”
He continues, “There’s a certain fierceness that Maggie has about her career and what she wanted to do next, and I quickly within minutes thought that fierceness that she’s showing about her own life is the fierceness that Ballard has. It could be a perfect match. It’s very esoteric to say it that way. Obviously, she is at a level where she did not audition. But it was like her personality could be taken and transferred to Ballard. I wasn’t in the room alone; it was a whole gang of people who were involved in developing this who all came to that conclusion right away.”
In the premiere, viewers find Ballard with a team of four (half are civilians) working in the basement of police headquarters, which has been transformed into an office for cold cases. This task force was pushed to be created after a city councilman lost his younger sister in a violent unsolved crime. He wants Ballard and her team to concentrate on the death of his loved one, but Ballard sees the city official’s daughter’s murder as just one of several that needs to be solved and moved out of the cold case files.
But there is a deeper reason for why Ballard is relegated to the basement of the department. It’s not completely clear yet, but Ballard is being ostracized by many of her colleagues for filing a complaint in the department for an accident that happened awhile back. She is even being made by the top brass to visit an LAPD-sanctioned psychologist. Whatever happened to her weighs heavily on the character.
“In the beginning of Ballard, she has lodged a complaint with the LAPD. Because of that, she has become enemy No. 1,” Q explains. “You don’t go against your own department. That put a target on her back, because seeking the truth and wanting it to come out is very detrimental to her career. That is what the first season is about. Detective Ballard doesn’t have as many years under her belt as Bosch does, so she is still in the stages of proving herself.”
In deciding why Ballard would be the next character to be explored out of the Bosch universe, Connelly says the decision wasn’t anything complex.
“I just thought that she could be a TV show,” Connelly explains. “I have a few characters out there; so, it’s not like I always get to do the choosing. Sometimes it’s when they come knocking on your door. [Head of TV] Vernon Sanders over at Amazon Prime is very interested in Ballard as the next extension of the Bosch universe. I couldn’t complain about that, it’s a character that I’ve written a lot about in the last decade and is close to my heart. I also knew what would help make a TV show, as Ballard is based on a real-life detective. So we could have that detective in the room and on the set when we filmed.”
And what about Bosch?
Welliver’s beloved character popped up in episode two of Ballard, but Connelly says that, unfortunately for the fans missing their favorite TV cop, there will not be a lot of Bosch sightings during the season.
“He may be in four episodes,” Connelly says. “The good thing is there won’t be any walk-ons. It’s not a cameo. He’ll only be on if he is actually helping to solve a case.”
Q recognizes that the special — yet distant — bond between Bosch and Ballard will develop over time.
“Bosch was interesting, but he was a take-no-prisoners sort of rule breaker,” Q says. “He was that guy who always stepped and colored outside of the lines. And with Ballard, she certainly has the same spirit, and that’s why she and Bosch connected at times; but Ballard says to Bosch at the end of the series finale, ‘I like you; I respect you. And you are good at what you do. But at the end of the day, you don’t have to worry about consequences. I do. I have people to answer to.’
“And so Ballard just had to learn how to play the game a bit smarter, because her way of survival is not as good as his,” she says.
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All 10 episodes of the first season of Ballard are now streaming on Prime Video.
