Famke Janssen biography
Date of birth : 1965-11-05
Date of death : -
Birthplace : Amstelveen, Netherlands
Nationality : Dutch
Category : Arhitecture and Engineering
Last modified : 2011-08-22
Credited as : Actress, fashion model, Bond girl
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She is best-known for playing the villainess Bond girl Xenia Onatopp in GoldenEye and Jean Grey/Phoenix in the X-Men film series. According to MTV, Janssen "mastered the art of the beautiful but deadly villainess."
Famke Beumer Janssen was born in Amstelveen, the Netherlands. Her first name means little girl in West Frisian, the native language of the Dutch province Friesland. Besides her native Dutch, Janssen speaks English and French. She also learned German, but has not kept up with it. She has two sisters, director Antoinette Beumer and actress Marjolein Beumer.
Before going to the United States, Janssen studied economics for a year at the University of Amsterdam, which she later called "the stupidest idea I ever had." Janssen moved to the U.S. in 1984 and began her professional career as a fashion model. She signed with Elite Model Management and worked for Yves Saint Laurent, Chanel and Victoria's Secret. While with the agency, her European measurements were listed as 92-61-92 and 36 dress size. Janssen is noted for being taller than average at 5 feet 11.5 inches (1.816 m) and her looks have been compared to Hedy Lamarr and 1940s films stars. After retiring from modeling in the early 1990s, she enrolled at Columbia University to study creative writing and literature. She also took up acting. Several years later Janssen moved to Los Angeles to establish her acting career.
Janssen made her screen debut in the 1992 drama Fathers and Sons. Following the success of GoldenEye, the actress began finding steady screen work, appearing in such films as Robert Altman's The Gingerbread Man (1998), in which she played Kenneth Branagh's ex-wife; Woody Allen's Celebrity (1998), which cast her as Branagh's girlfriend; and Robert Rodriguez's The Faculty, in which Janssen's part was furthered by alien brainwashing, instead of Branagh.
After closing the century with another excursion into supernatural grotesqueries in the remake of The House on Haunted Hill (1999), Janssen began the 21st century on a somewhat more heroic note, playing one of the titular group of superheroes in Bryan Singer's adaptation of the popular comic book X-Men.
Janssen lives in West Village in New York City. She was married to writer and director Tod Culpan Williams, son of architect Tod Williams, from 1995 to 2000.
Filmography:
2009 : The Farm (TV pilot)
2010 : Nip/Tuck (TV series)
2010 : The Chameleon
2010 : Down the Shore
2011 : Bringing Up Bobby (Director)
2011 : Untitled Taken sequel
2012 : Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters
