The Real Reason We Don't Hear From Famke Janssen Anymore

At six feet tall, Famke Janssen has always stood out from the crowd.
The Dutch beauty started her career as a model before breaking out as Bond villain Xenia
Onatopp in GoldenEye and beloved mutant Jean Grey in the X-Men franchise.
But since her character's dramatic death in 2006's X-Men: The Last Stand, the once high-profile
Janssen has somewhat disappeared from the movie spotlight.
Here's a look at the real reason we don't hear from Famke Janssen anymore.
The Last Stand
While the first two installments of the original X-Men trilogy were well received, X-Men: The
Last Stand was a critical disappointment despite making a ton of money.
Fans weren't happy with director Brett Ratner's treatment of the classic Dark Phoenix storyline
from the comics, or with the throwaway deaths of Cyclops, Professor X, or Jean Grey herself.
While the character has since returned to the movies, Janssen has mostly been replaced
by Sophie Turner, who plays a younger version of the superhero.
Janssen reached out to producers about being involved in the prequels, but never heard
back, which she's chalked up to sexism and ageism.
She told Entertainment Weekly, "Women, it's interesting because they're replaced, and
the older versions — or more mature, whatever the politically correct version of that is
— are never to be seen again.
Whereas the men are allowed to be both ages.
Sexism.
I think that I should be back along with my younger version … the way that we've seen
it with Magneto and Professor X."
Hopefully, like Phoenix, Janssen will eventually get the chance to be reborn in the franchise
she helped popularize in the first place.
Breaking the mold
Janssen told The Independent that she's well aware of how Hollywood thinks of her, but
she's determined not to get stuck in the Bond girl roles she's usually offered.
"I'm in a business where 99 percent of casting is typecasting and people compartmentalize
me into a specific area, but it's up to me to fight against it.
I don't want to be typecast, that's my big mission in life and it makes it a harder path
in this business for me."
"People instantly judge you on the way we look; that's human nature, unfortunately.
And the way I look is definitely a double-edged sword.
I've been lucky because I've never been out of work since I started acting, and I've been
in some big studio films, but that's not actually enough creatively."
Instead, Janssen has turned to independent films and television rather than be typecast
as just a femme fatale in blockbuster action flicks.
The directing bug
Janssen took three years off from acting in order to write and direct her first feature
film, Bringing Up Bobby, which appeared on the festival circuit in 2011.
Shot on location in Oklahoma in just 20 days, the film stars Milla Jovovich as a Ukrainian
con artist and single mother who moves to Oklahoma to start a new life.
Janssen was dating Oklahoma-raised actor and producer Cole Frates at the time, and was
inspired by the people and culture of his home state.
"I felt so much like an outsider, and we started talking about the idea of coming up with,
you know, the story of an outsider in Oklahoma, and out came Bringing up Bobby."
Sadly, the film earned poor reviews and never received a wide theatrical release.
But Janssen says she still has some other scripts on the back burner which she may eventually
direct.
Active activist
One of the reasons she's been out of the spotlight is that in addition to working in show business,
Janssen's also a dedicated activist.
For instance, she and her dog Licorice appeared in a People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals
advertisement in 2006, while she was also made a U.N. Goodwill Ambassador for Integrity
in 2008.
She's also since become a Water Ambassador for Green Cross International.
She spoke to The Huffington Post about her water activism, saying:
"It is a sin that in today's world, more than 800 million people live without access to
safe drinking water and that 2.5 billion people have no access to appropriate sanitation…Green
Cross International and the UN are doing wonderful things to help bring attention to the topic
of water and change the horrific statistics."
"We can all agree that billions of people lacking access to clean water and sanitation
is one of the colossal failures of the modern era."
The Blacklist
Though Janssen has had a lot of memorable film roles, she got her start in television.
After retiring from modeling in the early '90s, she was cast in a string of guest appearances
on popular series like Melrose Place, Ally McBeal, and The Untouchables, and even appeared
alongside her future X-Men co-star Patrick Stewart in an episode of Star Trek: The Next
Generation.
And since stepping away from the film scene, Janssen has returned to television for a number
of guest starring roles.
But her biggest part these days her lead role as lethal assassin Scottie Hargrove in The
Blacklist: Redemption, a spinoff of NBC's popular drama The Blacklist.
Janssen told The New York Times that one of the big draws of working in television is
that she doesn't have to move to Hollywood.
"One of the deciding factors was New York City.
The fact that I get to stay at home and sleep in my own bed is such a luxury after working
all over the world."
Keep doing your thing, Famke!
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The Real Reason We Don't Hear From Famke Janssen Anymore

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