While the “;Lost”; finale and the beginning of the revamped “;Hawaii Five-0”; claim entertainment headlines, another Hawaii-born star will soon star in an action-adventure series debuting this fall on the CW network.

Maggie Q will play the lead role as a female assassin on “;Nikita,”; based on the 1990 French thriller “;La Femme Nikita.”; The series will follow the network's hit “;The Vampire Diaries”; on Thursday nights.

The athletic Maggie Denise Quigley from Mililani, who just turned 31 yesterday, left the islands at 18 to do modeling, commercial and movie work in Hong Kong, and later split her time in Los Angeles. She has been better known in the Asian than American market, and was here last year to accept the Hawaii International Film Festival's Maverick Award and support the screening of her latest Chinese film, “;The Warrior and the Wolf.”;

But Quigley has also been making more of a name for herself in Hollywood recently with roles in such studio movies as “;Balls of Fury,”; “;Mission Impossible III”; and “;Live Free or Die Hard.”;

The series “;Nikita”; will be the third American remake of the original French movie.

The Hollywood Reporter reports that Quigley's hiring marks the highest-profile series role for an Asian actress on a broadcast drama series.

Quigley is also set to appear in two movies, “;The King of Fighters”; and the horror western “;Priest,”; opposite “;Legion”; star Paul Bellany.