Famke Beumer Janssen (/ˈfɑːmkə ˈjænsən/; born 5 November 1965) is a Dutch actress, director, screenwriter, and former fashion model. She is known for playing the villainous Bond girl Xenia Onatopp in GoldenEye (1995), Jean Grey/Phoenix in the X-Men film series (2000–2013), and Lenore Mills in Taken (2008), and its sequel, Taken 2 (2012). In 2008, she was appointed a Goodwill Ambassador for Integrity by United Nations. She made her directorial debut with Bringing Up Bobby in 2011.
Janssen was born in Amstelveen, Noord-Holland, Netherlands. Her first name, Famke, means "girl" in West Frisian, the native language of the Dutch province Friesland. She has two sisters, director Antoinette Beumer and actress Marjolein 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.
By Posted on