Famke Janssen

Famke Beumer Janssen^[1] was born on November 5, 1964,^[2] in Amstelveen, the Netherlands.^[3][4] She has two sisters, director Antoinette Beumer and actress Marjolein Beumer, both of whom changed their surnames to Beumer after their parents divorced.^[5]

In addition to her native Dutch, Janssen speaks English and French. She learned German, but has not kept up with it.^[6] Following her high school graduation, Janssen studied economics for a year at the University of Amsterdam, which she later called "the stupidest idea I ever had."^[5] In the early 1990s, she enrolled at Columbia University's School of General Studies to study creative writing and literature.^[7][8]

In 1984, Janssen moved to the United States to begin her professional career as a fashion model. She signed with Elite Model Management and worked for Yves Saint Laurent, Giorgio Armani, Chanel, and Victoria's Secret. She starred in a 1988 commercial for the perfume Exclamation by Coty.^[9] Her looks have been compared to 1940s movie stars like Hedy Lamarr.^[3]

After retiring from modelling in the early 1990s, Janssen had guest roles on several television series, including a role in the 1992 Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "The Perfect Mate", as empathic metamorph Kamala, opposite Patrick Stewart, with whom she later starred in the X-Men film series.^[3] That same year, Janssen was offered the role of Jadzia Dax in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine,^[10] but turned it down to pursue film roles. Her first film role was alongside Jeff Goldblum in the 1992 crime drama film Fathers & Sons.

In 1995, Janssen appeared in Pierce Brosnan's debut James Bond film, GoldenEye, as femme fatale Xenia Onatopp. She appeared in Lord of Illusions with Scott Bakula. In an attempt to fight against typecasting after her Bond girl performance, Janssen began seeking out more intriguing supporting roles, appearing in John Irvin's City of Industry, Woody Allen's Celebrity, Robert Altman's The Gingerbread Man, and Ted Demme's Monument Ave.^[11] Denis Leary, her co-star in Monument Ave., was impressed by how easily she blended in, initially not recognizing her, as she was already in character.^[3] In the late 1990s, she appeared in The Faculty, Rounders, Deep Rising, and House on Haunted Hill.

In 2000, Janssen played superhero Dr. Jean Grey in the 20th Century Fox film X-Men. She later reprised the role in the 2003 sequel, X2, where her character shows signs of increasing powers, but at the end of the film, she is presumably killed. Janssen returns as Jean, whose death in X2 awoke her dark alternate personality, Phoenix, in X-Men: The Last Stand (2006). For that role, she won a Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress.^[12] She returned as Jean in the 2013 film The Wolverine as a hallucination of Wolverine,^[13] followed by a brief cameo for X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014).^[14][15]

In 2002, Janssen landed the role of villainess Serleena in Men in Black II, but had to abandon the film due to a death in her family and was replaced by Lara Flynn Boyle.^[16] Janssen had a prominent role in the second season of the TV series Nip/Tuck, as the seductive and manipulative life coach Ava Moore, which earned her Hollywood Life's Breakthrough Artist of the Year Award.^[17] She reprised her role in the final two episodes of the series.

In 2007, she starred in Turn the River, for which she was awarded the Special Recognition Best Actress Award at the Hamptons International Film Festival.^[18] The following year, she starred in Luc Besson's Taken. Janssen continued to work in television, appearing in TV pilots for NBC's police drama Winters and Showtime's The Farm, a spinoff of The L Word, set in a women's prison. Both pilots were rejected by their networks. Janssen provided the Dutch language narration for the Studio Tram Tour at all Disney theme parks.^[11]

In 2011, Janssen made her directorial debut with the drama Bringing Up Bobby. She wrote the screenplay to the film, which stars Milla Jovovich, Bill Pullman, and Marcia Cross.^[19] She reprised her role as Lenore Mills in Taken 2 (2012) and Taken 3 (2014). She starred as the main villain Muriel in Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters (2013).

Janssen starred in the Netflix original horror thriller television series Hemlock Grove, wherein she plays the role of family matriarch Olivia Godfrey.^[20] Janssen had a recurring role in the ABC crime thriller television series How To Get Away With Murder, appearing in ten episodes throughout the series, beginning her role in season two of the show and concluding it in the series finale.

Janssen was cast in a starring role in the NBC crime thriller The Blacklist: Redemption, a spin-off of the NBC series The Blacklist, in March 2016;^[21] it was picked up to series in May 2016.^[22] The following month, Janssen expressed frustration at not being cast in X-Men: Apocalypse, saying Hollywood was sexist toward older women. She said: "Women, it's interesting because they're replaced, and the older versions are never to be seen again... whereas the men are allowed to be both ages."^[23]

In 2019, she served as a juror for the Tribeca Film Festival.^[24] Also in 2019, Janssen joined Jeffrey Dean Morgan in The Postcard Killings, which was released in 2020.^[25] In 2021, Janssen starred in the Christian romantic drama film Redeeming Love^[26] and the action-thriller Dangerous.^[27]

In a March 2021 interview, she revealed to Forbes some details about her involvement with the live-action adaptation of Saint Seiya, a popular anime and manga. Janssen said that filming was supposed to take place in Europe the previous year, but production had been postponed twice due to the coronavirus pandemic. She also hinted that she would play one of the main characters, but did not specify their name.^[28] The movie, titled Knights of the Zodiac, was eventually released in 2023, with Janssen playing the role of Vander Guraad.^[29]

Famke Janssen made her first Dutch-language acting appearance in the 2025 Netflix crime drama series Amsterdam Empire, set in Amsterdam's cannabis scene, where she stars as Betty, an ex-pop diva seeking revenge. She also served as an executive producer on the series.^[30] In January 2026, X-Men writer Chris Claremont confirmed that Janssen would reprise the role of Jean Grey in Avengers: Doomsday.^[31]

Janssen appeared with her dog, Licorice, a brindle Boston Terrier, in a 2007 PETA campaign to raise awareness for animal rights. The campaign used the slogan "Be an Angel for Animals."^[32] On 28 January 2008, she was appointed a Goodwill Ambassador for Integrity for the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime at a United Nations anticorruption conference held in Nusa Dua, Bali.^[33]

From 1989 to 2000,^[34] Janssen was married to writer and director Kip Williams, son of architect Tod Williams.^[4][35]