SCOUSE STAR WHO
Mayling ng may have some explaining to do if her car is ever stopped by police.
Officers would find a 7ft sword, bo staff and spear on her backseat.
And in the trunk, more swords along with a whip-chain, threesection staff and double-nunchucks.
“I probably look like a crazy ex-girlfriend out for revenge,” says the actress and martial arts expert.
“If I didn’t have a licence for my weapons I would probably get in a lot of trouble. But once I say it’s for my daily training and explain what I do, people instantly relax.”
Mayling, born to a Liverpudlian mother and a Singaporean-Chinese father, is one of Hollywood’s fastestrising action heroes, starring in the hotly-awaited Suicide Squad sequel, opposite Margot Robbie, Idris Elba, Viola Davis and Peter Capaldi.
You’ve seen her leap off a cliff in Wonder Woman and as a villain in Scorpion King and Lady Bloodfight.
“You’re in great shape,” Arnold Schwarzenegger once told her.
“I’m trying to be the female you,” she replied. She’s well on her way.
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A knife-blade under 5ft 8in and an all-muscle 10st, Mayling can look sexy and sophisticated in gown and stilettos, but is most comfortable in body-hugging workout clothes.
“I don’t want to be a Bond Girl – I want to be a Bond villain,” villain, she says. “Villains have ve the best fight scenes. It’s easier to play the snarling and chilling warrior rior ripping a man’s ’s head off, than simpering submissive damsel in distress – that’s not me.
“People presume I’m a stuntwoman. n. I’m an actress who does her er own fights. I know how to handle weapons. I train every day, follow llow a strict diet et and have a kung fu black belt in eight weapons. I can take care e of myself.”
Mayling can deadlift 315lb. Bruises on her thigh are from a new routine with nunchucks. nchucks. Scuffed knees s are from tumbling across cross the floor in a fight ht scene.
But her succ ucc ess has been an uphill ill battle.
She goes on: “Everyone told me ‘ You’re not 18, blonde or skinny. You’ll never make it in Hollywood’. . In Asia they said I was too tall and strong, so o I’d never play a movie star’s girlfriend, I’d only play someone who o is killed in the first act. But now women en are playing strong ng roles and I’m becoming coming more in demand.” mand.”
First, Mayling ling had to overcome me the
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doubts of family and friend friends. She says: “I grew u up in Liverpool, told to be quiet, stay in a co corner.
“My father fath wanted me to mar marry a businessman a and have babies, lead a quiet life.
“It helped drive me toward being a warrior.
My brothers are all successful businessmen, but I’m in Hollywood jumping off buildings.
“If you tell me not to do anything, I’ll work 100 per cent harder to prove I can do it. My father owned the Mandarin Chinese restaurant in Liverpool, so I was always eating.
“I love food and was really big and pear-shaped for years. I was too insecure to wear heels or a dress until I was 28. That’s when I started lifting heavy weights, ate more protein and less rice. My body got really tight in a matter of months.”
Her parents divorced when she was just three, and at 13 she moved with her dad to Tenerife, where he opened a chain of restaurants. Mayling went on to launch her own chain of protein-based health food cafés, before turning to acting.
“I’d been training in kung fu since eight and loved Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan movies, so in my 20s I moved to Hong Kong to break into Asian
I don’t want to be B Bond Girl I want w to be B Bond villain villain... for fight s scenes MAYLING NG BRIT STAR ON HOLLYWOOD HOLLYWOO DREAM