Famke Beumer Janssen (/ˈfɑːmkə ˈjɑːnsən/; Dutch: [ˈfɑmkə ˈbøːmər ˈjɑnsə(n)]; born November 5, 1964 in Amstelveen, Netherlands) is a Dutch actress, director, screenwriter and former fashion model. She played Xenia Onatopp in GoldenEye (1995), Jean Grey / Phoenix in the X-Men film series (2000–2014), Ava Moore on Nip/Tuck and Lenore Mills in Taken (2008) and its sequels, Taken 2 (2012) and Taken 3 (2014). Her first name, Famke, means "girl" in Frisian language, the native language of the Dutch province Friesland. In 2008, she was appointed a Goodwill Ambassador for Integrity by the United Nations. She made her directorial debut with Bringing Up Bobby in 2011. She is also known for her role in the Netflix Original Series Hemlock Grove and for her role in ABC's How To Get Away With Murder. Janssen stars in the 2017 NBC crime thriller The Blacklist: Redemption. In 2000, Janssen played superhero Dr. Jean Grey in the Marvel Studios 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 a very much alive Jean whose death in X2 awoke her dark alternate personality, Phoenix in X-Men: The Last Stand (2006). At the end of the film, she is killed by Wolverine (played by Hugh Jackman), who only does it because Jean asks him to, not wanting to hurt anyone when Phoenix is in control. For that role, she won a Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress. 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.
Janssen was married to writer and director Kip Williams, son of architect Tod Williams, from 1995 to 2000. She reprised her role as Lenore Mills in Taken 2 (2012) and Taken 3 (2014). She starred as the main villain Muriel in Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters (2013). The following year, she starred in Luc Besson's Taken. Janssen also continued to work in television, appearing in TV pilots for NBC's cop drama Winters and Showtime's The Farm, a The L Word spin-off set in a women's prison.
Famke Janssen
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