Famke Janssen talks about her career and life after Bond

03-May-2003 • Actor News

The Times interview Famke Janssen recently, and she spoke about her career and how everything took off with her role as Xenia Onatopp in "GoldenEye" back in 1995:

Since GoldenEye Janssen, a Dutch emigree in New York for the past 15 years, has effectively had two careers: on the one hand, she has played beauty-belying roles for American auteurs such as Woody Allen (Celebrity) and Robert Altman (The Gingerbread Man); on the other, she has become a staple of big-budget, mass appeal movies such as the thriller Don`t Say a Word, opposite Michael Douglas, the horror spoof The Faculty and, most notably, X-Men 1 & 2.

She admits that the first four years of her acting career were rough. When I ask if she is happy to have made a Bond, she exclaims: "Oh my God, yes. That film paved the way for me.

"I grew up watching Bond films, thinking they were hysterical. They have such a tongue-in-cheek quality. I played Onatopp as if I was in a comedy." One drawback of Bond, she suggests, is that whenever the studios call it is for action-led adventures. Janssen has to find her best roles in the art-house world.

"I love independents. They give me a chance to do things that I haven`t been able to do in studio films." She has just finished a movie called Eulogy in which she plays a lesbian.

"I do nag my agents. But my biggest lesson in life so far, honestly, is that if you really want something, you can`t fight for it; you chase it in the other direction. I think that there`s definitely a more Zen-like way about it."