She was born in Honolulu, Hawaii to an American father of Polish, Irish, and French descent and a Vietnamese mother. Her parents met while her father was stationed in Vietnam. Maggie is the youngest of 5 children. She has two sisters and two half-siblings from her mother's previous marriage in Vietnam. After graduating from Mililani high school she travelled to Japan and Hong Kong to earn money as a fashion model. In 1998 she got her first role in a Chinese TV series, and she has been acting ever since. While still relatively unfamiliar to audiences in the United States, she has achieved celebrity status in Hong Kong and elsewhere in East Asia. She has appeared in Chinese films speaking Cantonese, despite her non-Chinese heritage. Her big breakthrough in the West came when she bagged the lead role in the Hong Kong action thriller Naked Weapon, playing the sexy but vulnerable martial artist assassin Charlene Ching. She has also played the titular role of Harmony in the German-Singapore telemovie collaboration Das Haus Der Harmonie, opposite leading Singaporean actress Fann Wong. She starred in her biggest Hollywood role to date alongside Tom Cruise in Mission: Impossible III. She played Zhen, the only female member of his elite IMF team. Maggie will play a world-class hacker at odds with a villain who tries to terrorize America in Bruce Willis' Live Free or Die Hard.