Early life and education

Famke Beumer Janssen was born c. 1964 in Amstelveen in the Netherlands. Her first name, Famke, means "girl" in West Frisian, the native language of the Dutch province Friesland. She was given both her mother and father's surnames: Beumer and Janssen. She retained the name Janssen. She has two sisters, director Antoinette Beumer and actress Marjolein Beumer, both of whom changed their surnames to simply Beumer. In addition to her native Dutch, Janssen speaks English and French. She also learned German, but has not kept up with it. 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." In the early 1990s, she enrolled at Columbia University to study creative writing and literature. She graduated in 1992 with a Bachelor of Arts degree.

Career

Modelling and early 1990s

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, Chanel, and Victoria's Secret. She starred in a 1988 commercial for the perfume Exclamation by Coty, Inc. Her looks have been compared to Hedy Lamarr and other 1940s films stars.

After retiring from modelling in the early 1990s, Janssen had guest roles on several television series, including a starring 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. That same year, Janssen was offered the role of Jadzia Dax in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, but turned it down to pursue film roles. Her first film role was alongside Jeff Goldblum in the 1992 crime drama film Fathers & Sons.

1990s-2000

In 1995, Janssen appeared in Pierce Brosnan's first James Bond film, GoldenEye, as femme fatale Xenia Onatopp. She also 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 support 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. 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. In the late 1990s, she also appeared in The Faculty, Rounders, Deep Rising, and House on Haunted Hill.

X-Men films

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. She returned as Jean in the 2013 film The Wolverine as a hallucination of Wolverine's.

In 2014, Janssen reprised her role of Jean Grey in a brief cameo for X-Men: Days of Future Past, as did a few of the original actors from the first three films including Anna Paquin and James Marsden. In the film, Wolverine went back in time and changed the course of the future, the result being that the events of the third movie, including the deaths of Jean Grey and Cyclops, never happened.

2002-present

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.

In addition, Janssen had a prominent role in the second season of the popular 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. 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. 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. Both pilots were rejected by their respective networks. Janssen also provided the Dutch language narration for the Studio Tram Tour at all Disney theme parks.

In 2011, Janssen made her directorial début with the drama Bringing Up Bobby. She also wrote the screenplay to the film, which stars Milla Jovovich, Bill Pullman and Marcia Cross. She reprised her role as Lenore Mills in Taken 2 (2012) and Taken 3 (2015). She starred as the main villain Muriel in Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters (2013).

Janssen has starred in the Netflix Original, horror thriller television series Hemlock Grove since 2013 where she plays the role of family matriarch Olivia Godfrey.

In 2016, Janssen showed frustration in not being cast in the new X-men movie X-Men: Apocalypse saying Hollywood was sexist towards 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.”

Personal life and activism

Janssen was married to writer and director Kip Williams, son of architect Tod Williams, from 1995 to 2000.

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." 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 anti-corruption conference held in Nusa Dua, Bali.

Filmography

Film

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1992	Fathers & Sons	Kyle Christian
1994	Relentless IV: Ashes to Ashes	Dr. Sara Lee Jaffee	Video
1995	GoldenEye	Xenia Onatopp
1995	Lord of Illusions	Dorothea Swann
1996	Dead Girl	Treasure
1997	City of Industry	Rachel Montana
1998	Monument Ave.	Katy O'Connor
1998	Gingerbread Man, TheThe Gingerbread Man	Leeanne Magruder
1998	Deep Rising	Trillian St. James
1998	RPM	Claudia Haggs
1998	Rounders	Petra
1998	Celebrity	Bonnie
1998	Adventures of Sebastian Cole, TheThe Adventures of Sebastian Cole	Fiona
1998	Faculty, TheThe Faculty	Miss Elizabeth Burke
1999	House on Haunted Hill	Evelyn Stockard-Price
2000	Love & Sex	Kate Welles
2000	Circus	Lily Garfield
2000	X-Men	Jean Grey
2001	Made	Jessica
2001	Don't Say a Word	Agatha "Aggie" Conrad
2002	I Spy	Rachel Wright
2003	X2	Jean Grey
2004	Eulogy	Judy Arnolds
2005	Hide and Seek	Dr. Katherine Carson
2006	X-Men: The Last Stand	Jean Grey / Dark Phoenix
2006	Treatment, TheThe Treatment	Allegra Marshall
2007	Ten, TheThe Ten	Gretchen Reigert
2007	Turn the River	Kailey Sullivan
2008	Wackness, TheThe Wackness	Kristen Squires
2008	Taken	Lenore "Lenny" Mills
2008	100 Feet	Marnie Watson
2010	The Chameleon	Jennifer Johnson
2011	Down the Shore	Mary Reed
2011	Bringing Up Bobby	N/A	Director, producer, writer
2012	Taken 2	Lenore "Lenny" Mills
2013	Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters	Muriel
2013	The Wolverine	Jean Grey
2013	In the Woods
2014	A Fighting Man	Diane Schuler
2014	Unity	Narrator (voice)	Documentary; post-production
2014	X-Men: Days of Future Past	Jean Grey	Cameo
2015	Taken 3	Lenore "Lenny" Mills
2015	Jack of the Red Hearts	Kay
2016	Going Under		Filming
2016	This Is Your Death	Ilana Katz	Post-production

Television

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1992	Star Trek: The Next Generation	Kamala	Episode: "The Perfect Mate"
1994	Melrose Place	Diane Adamson	Episode: "Michael's Game"
1994	Model by Day	Lex / Lady X	TV film
1994	Untouchables, TheThe Untouchables	Cleo	Episode: "Voyeur"
2000-01	Ally McBeal	Jamie	Episodes: "The Man with the Bag", "The Ex-Files"
2004-10	Nip/Tuck	Ava Moore	Recurring role (11 episodes)
2007	Winters	Christie Winters	TV film
2008	Puppy Love	Maya	Web series
2009	Farm, TheThe Farm	Valentina Galindo	TV film
2013-15	Hemlock Grove	Olivia Godfrey	Main role (33 episodes)
2014	@midnight	Herself	Episode dated July 16, 2014; Guest appearance
2015-present	How to Get Away with Murder	Eve Rothlow	Recurring role (6 episodes)
2016	Robot Chicken	Jean Grey	Voice role; episode: "Joel Hurwitz"
2016	The Blacklist	Susan Hargrave	Recurring role
2016	The Blacklist: Redemption	Susan Hargrave	Upcoming series; main role

Awards and nominations

Year	Nominated Work	Award	Results
1995	GoldenEye	MTV Movie Award for Best Fight	Nominated
2006	X-Men: The Last Stand	Teen Choice Award for Choice Liplock	Nominated
2007		Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress	Won

[ Source: Wikipedia ]