Maggie Q On Her Dedication To The Planet, How Every Single Person Can Make A Difference and Inspiring Others To Live A More Earth Conscious Life

Yes definitely; it first started with this hatred for injustice.I hate injustice whether it’s against the environment, animals, children, or women, it all bothers me equally. I think I just came into the world like that, it’s at the heart of who I am. Out of that fire of feeling like injustice was so wrong, I started to research because I wanted to know how things were made and how animals were treated. I’ve also crossed paths with a lot of people who opened my eyes to different things. It set me off on a journey to research the where, who and how about of all the things that were in my life.

I’d been in fashion for a long time. I started as a model and then gained this celebrity as an actor, which also is fashion related as well, it all goes together—there is stuff to be seen on whoever is seen. There was a lot of gifting and samples, you were saturated with all of the things. Being surrounded by things, created a further desire to be around more things. It’s very circular. There was a point where I was in LA but I had found this little house in the woods in New York. It was 250 years old, it was a mill before, and it was so magical to me. It was small and it was nothing; it was more about nature.  So I was living in a big house in LA and I remember thinking, I don’t want this anymore; when I walked down the street, no one said ‘hi to each other. There was no community, I thought, why am I living in a world where there is no community? No one knows your name and no one cares. I wanted to be in a place where all of that was supported. I ended up moving to this much smaller place that I felt was more me, in terms of my values, then I had to downsize. I had to look at everything I owned and face the fact everything wasn’t going to fit in that house. I think that was the huge eye-opener and made me question, how could I have done this? How could one person have this much stuff? I had a friend who worked closely with domestic violence shelters and I gave them all of the shoes, jeans, pants—things that people actually need. The rest I gave away and sold; I got rid of so much. All of that wasn’t a part of who I was anymore. I told myself I never wanted to be in that position ever again, where I wasn’t mobile or aware of what I had collected. It was a huge moment for me to downsize by choice, because my heart wasn’t in it. 

Maggie is wearing the Out the Door Trench from her line Qeep Up

I know and you are one person. I then think about trash, if I take the trash out a few times a week, I think, I am just one person. 

Maggie is wearing Mara Hoffman’s Leonara Dress and Misho Earrings

It really has, it’s like the positive rabbit hole, the hole you want to go down (laughs). It’s harder, which is why people don’t want to go down it but everything does dovetail into everything else. You start to not want to support businesses who don’t have an ethical slant on how they produce or who benefits from them. I love going to farmer’s markets but they closed them in LA last year during the pandemic. I remember at the height of it, when everything was being delivered, I felt a pain in my chest—all of the bags—so I started researching how I could get my farm boxes. I found these amazing collectives of people who wanted to help the farmers. They would have farmers drop off the produce and then they would use recycled boxes to hand out every week. There was no extra trash, no refrigeration, no energy use, it was literally farm to table. That’s what starts to happen, you want to support the right things. 

It’s hard, I am not going to lie, sometimes I feel really depressed about it. I look at New York City street garbage and I think, that’s going into the ocean.  There is no regulatory anything where trash goes. We have opened our oceans as if it’s one giant trash can, one giant toilet bowl. All of the waste from the animals we eat and raw sewage from humans goes into the ocean. There is a real thing called activist burnout, where the issues and the overwhelming, overarching issues are so big that you start to feel so small. You swallow hard all of the time. Everything hurts. You have to pick yourself up and say, I am one person and I started this journey because I knew that one person can make a difference in every single action that they made. You have to remember that, stick with it, and feel good about it.

Also, live a life that is inspiring to others; people don’t want to be dictated to, they don’t want to be judged and they don’t want to be told how to live, but maybe they can see an example of living in a better way where it doesn’t cost them too much. With my brands or charities I support, I think, how can I make it easy for people to make a choice that is going to impact the environment or the animals positively, and where people don’t have to think or make much of an effort because the truth is, a lot of people don’t care as much as we do. 

That’s exciting—I think that is in large part due to Gen Z. There is a whole contingent of young people who really get it. You have a side of young people who just see things very differently and they are going to educate their parents and those around them. They are going to live differently because their fundamentals are different and they are going to change the game.

Maggie is wearing a Matteau Dress

There is so much but here is an alarming fact, everyone goes out for sushi because it’s delicious (laughs). But tuna is making people sick because it’s high in mercury and heavy metals but at the same time they are in danger, in a really big way. Tuna populations are one of the most threatened fish that exists in the ocean, especially our large bluefins, and they are a major food source for whales, sharks, and dolphins. Another thing that’s really alarming is the Mitsubishi Corporation is buying up tuna stock and they are freezing them because they realize there will be a huge demand and premium when they disappear, which is going to be quite quickly. Many scientists are saying six years, it depends on who you are talking to, but it’s not far off because we are dropping nets and catching everything in sight for human consumption.

I’m not telling people you can’t consume certain things but I remember when I was a kid, sushi was rare. It definitely wasn’t on every corner, now you can buy it at the airport and at gas stations! I remember as a young person, veal—one of the most disgusting things on the planet—was one of the most coveted things on the menu because it was so expensive. Now there are sandwich places that are selling veal subs or veal this or that for under three dollars. The reason that veal has become so inexpensive and accessible is that milk production has increased so you have more pregnant mothers. We are taking the milk from those pregnant mothers and stealing their babies so there is more veal.

Yes, another is foie gras. The human animal is so capable of feeling compassion and creating innovation; we’re an amazing creature but at the same time, if we aren’t using the gifts of compassion, discernment, and making informed decisions, what’s the point of being so evolved? 

I am on the mountains with my dogs every morning. Rain or shine, it doesn’t matter. It’s a form of meditation for me, the hawks are above you and now it’s spring and life is coming back. The green you see is not the same green you always see. That’s the first grounding thing to be in nature in the morning and to set you up for your day otherwise, you’re at your computer most of the day or running around doing what you do. I’m in the ocean probably every week kayaking. The last time I was in Hawaii, I was surrounded by 200 dolphins. It’s incredible because they are allowing you into their space; when I go into the ocean I am in their home that’s how I feel when I am in the mountains too. We cohabitate with animals but we don’t put a spotlight on them as much as we do our own experience. I love gardening; there is such satisfaction in growing your own food and you are also getting the most nutrition out of your food. 

Funnily enough, my motivation to get into business was nonprofit. I was raising money for different organizations back in the early 2000s. I realized how hard it was for charities to have a sustainable, stable income when it came to their annual expenses. I started to get an inside look at what their struggles were. In 2008, when everything crashed, people pulled their charitable donations and a lot of people who pulled them were people who could afford it. They suffered in ways I had never seen before; I saw grassroot organizations close shop and people who dedicated their lives to things couldn’t survive. The crash lasted a long time and the effects were huge. I was thinking about business, what it means to be an entrepreneur, have success, and fund the organizations who were doing the best work, that was my dream.

With my probiotic company, about three years ago, I was able to take a big chunk of our profits and give them to Animals Asia, the first group I ever supported.  I did a fundraiser for them when I was 21 and I made a good amount of money that night; I remember that really affected me. I thought, I am only one person, and it made a difference. The organization was so happy to be able to get the help; I thought about what it would look like if it was done on a consistent basis. The founder of the group called me after I made the donation bawling and she said, I don’t think you understand the position we were in until we got your call. It’s funny because that was my ultimate dream, it was that people and animals were going to benefit, too. They were saving dogs and cats from the meat market, educating kids, going to elderly homes, and trying to get domesticated animals into the public vernacular. The cruelty stems from not understanding that you can have a relationship with these animals. Qeep Up also benefits the ocean charity, Blue Spear Foundation, started by my friend Shawn Heinrichs. He’s been a guy who I have fought with on the ground for the last 15 years; he’s not someone who’s on the periphery. I thought, if I start Qeep Up and we can sustain and grow the business, the benefits for the ocean will be very dramatic.  

I started researching sustainable fabrics about a decade ago. I found that they did exist but the quality just wasn't there yet. I couldn’t start a brand or produce a product unless it was at least the equivalent of something on the market that wasn’t recycled and that people loved and reused every day. I can’t offer you a less quality product or have someone feel sorry for us. I wanted to create something indistinguishable from the premium stuff that was out there, if not better, so that’s what I set out to do. I waited years and I kept dipping in but it wasn’t until three years ago where it started to get good. It started to mimic virgin fibers that were sourced differently. I started to get excited because this was the moment where I could create a premium brand for the market that didn’t exist. There still isn't a brand, that I know of, that is one hundred percent recycled like ours. My dream, in starting this company, was to keep the footprint down and create products in the US for the US out of trash from the US. I wanted it all done here. I know that’s incredibly idealistic to say, even with our expansion into China, which we are going to consider doing, again, it’s going to be their trash and it becomes an educational platform for what it is we are trying to do. 

It’s top to bottom with our company; it’s really hard to build a business with integrity because it’s cheaper not to. It’s harder to source, it takes longer, our lead times on recycled fabric are double, or even triple, that of producing a fast-fashion product and in turn make money really fast. We don’t have hangtags; everything is heat-pressed onto the garment. Our bags and mailer will biodegrade after a year in a landfill. With everything we do, we don't want to create more trash and of course, we are making something out of post-consumer waste—that is exciting to us. Besides it being shipped to you, there is no footprint. We have a new collection coming out in May where we have 20% more compression; the swim fabric is amazing, if it wasn’t we wouldn’t have done it. 

I would like to build it into a lifestyle brand. In a sustainable sense, I want to be able to branch out in a way where we are presenting you with a lifestyle with all of the things that we have done and worked so hard to build, we want to share that with you. Whether we are selling something to you or we aren’t selling anything. We have a blog that I contribute to, we have recipes, we have Qeep recipes, Qeep yoga, I want people to live better, that’s my ultimate dream for the brand. It takes time for people to learn who is legitimately sustainable and who is saying it because it’s a buzzword. Our customer base is educated, loyal, and gets it from top to bottom that couldn’t make us happier. 

I’ve been working in the fashion and television world since I was 18, and I distinctly remember being a person who didn’t care what anyone thought. If you are my best friend, mom, or sister or the people who matter to me, I would be devastated, the people who matter really matter to me. The people who don’t matter, really don’t matter. Even with jobs, there were times my manager would call and say I didn’t get something, I would say, okay! She would say, but Maggie you didn’t get it and I would say, okay! She’d ask me why I wasn’t upset and I would say, if that didn’t work, something else is coming. She had never been around anyone who believed that. It’s spirit, God, whatever you want to call it, I think it’s a universal gift that was given to me where I was able to compartmentalize.  If you care about what people think who don’t matter to you, you are really shooting yourself in the foot by virtue of the fact that they don’t know you. What is it about you that cares about what they think? 

Here’s the trick; anytime we feel offended or hurt by something, normally it has to do with a breaking down of our self image. It’s like, I always thought I was like this, but someone is telling me I am not and that hurts me.

Yes, it’s ego and so it really doesn’t make sense for me to read reviews. I have already done whatever it is so there’s nothing I can do to change it. I know that when I did the job that I gave it 100% and if they don’t like it, there is nothing I can do. If I don’t give one hundred percent then I have some question marks for myself. That’s how I navitage it.

I am just really in sync. This business is like lightening in a bottle; you don’t know what is going to work or not work. The thing you never thought would work did work, it’s funny because it is that way. You have to go on instinct. 

I think the people in the very beginning who were really mean to me. When I was lowest on the totem pole, there were people who were so incredibly cruel and used their position to bully and intimidate the ‘small people’. I remember on my first job, there were a bunch of famous actors from that region and there was this guy who was just so mean to mean—it was unbelievable—he would go out of his way to be rude. I couldn’t figure it out, it was personally hurtful. I endured it and one day I got the courage to tell him off. I took away from that experience that I never wanted to make anyone feel the way he made me feel and if I went on in the business, and I got to that level, where I was somebody that people looked up to, a leader or a lead in something, I would do my best to make sure that everyone felt like they were valuable. No one makes a movie alone, no matter how big of a movie star you are. Those lessons were huge for me, they gave me a lot. Now I know that was an expression of frustration and trauma. I feel like you are entitled to react or move in this world however you want, but what we can’t do is allow them to change us. 

I had done this movie on Netflix called The Argument, where I teamed back up with my buddy Dan Fogler, who I did Balls of Fury with years ago. It was this tiny comedy, we shot it at the director’s house. It was so much fun to be in a space where we were trusted and could create. The director, Robert Schwartzman was open and kind. I remember thinking this is how I want to feel at work. I know not everything can be just fun and games but at the same time I want to have an open environment where creating is a team sport. 

They were casting for Pivoting and they were supposed to go in March of last year, but they had to hold it for a year. They already had Eliza Coup attached and Ginny Goodwin came on a bit later, but they had never cast my role. They said they couldn’t figure it out. The creator turned on The Argument and said, that’s the character I wrote, that’s her! Then I got a call the next day. I read with the other two amazingly funny women and we just had this amazing chemistry. We felt like friends. I wrote to Robert and said, I had been this person who had worked in dramas for so long and I have been really grateful to have that career. I told him that he was the person who met me in a coffee shop and said, no, you are funny, I see it through all of the drama. It’s to his credit that he saw that and I got the opportunity to work with him and then they got to see me in a way that they hadn’t seen me before.

I would tell my younger self not to take anything personally. That’s a tough one to not take things personally when you feel all the things. 

The first thing is you have to believe in what you do. It doesn’t matter what you do, whatever it is, you have to believe in it and to have the passion for your place in this world is so incredible. I think passion can be cultivated and to be open to that means that maybe your purpose is coming, sooner than you think, if you feel like you are living a life on purpose.

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A special thank you to the team

Photography by Azusa Takano; Styling by Christopher Kim; Film by ChinChin Hao of In-Between Studios; Hair by Derek Yeun at A-Frame Agency; Makeup by Kindra Mann at TMG-LA