Famke Janssen On Her Career And New ‘Amsterdam Empire’ Netflix Series

Not many actors, if any, can say that they have played both a Marvel superhero and a Bond villain within their career – but Famke Janssen sure can.

From breakout roles playing assassin Zenia Onatopp in 1995’s GoldenEye to her beloved run as the telepathic Jean Grey in numerous X-Men movies, Janssen, 60, has continued on to play a wide array of characters, including recently in the Taken trilogy and as Viola Davis’s longtime love interest, Eve, on Shondaland’s hit How to Get Away with Murder television series.

Born in the Netherlands, Janssen is now returning to her roots on-screen for the very first time, as Betty in the new Amsterdam Empire series. Now streaming on Netflix, she plays a longtime famous European model and singer, who finds herself having to pick up the pieces of her life when her husband (played by Jacob Derwig), a Dutch coffee and cannabis mogul, leaves her for a younger woman. What follows is a gritty and calculating tale, with Betty striving relentlessly to get revenge on her ex.

“I’m very proud of it,” Janssen told me during our recent Zoom interview for Amsterdam Empire. “This is a project that was the most different from roles I’ve had. Having agency, where I’m an executive producer. I co-designed my costumes. I’m the star. It’s been an incredible experience.”

Having grown up in the Netherlands, Janssen revealed to me that she left the northwestern European country at 18 when she began her career traveling the world as a model. Those experiences ultimately brought her to New York, which is where she first began her acting career. With Amsterdam Empire, this is Janssen’s first time acting in her native Dutch language.

“I associate acting with the English language. Over the years, some things had come in and it just hadn’t been right – the components weren’t all there, but I think it was the fact that Netflix was behind this and that we live in a different time now. I mean, during my years as an actor – let’s say 10-15 years ago – it was unheard of that people would watch an international series with subtitles, but streaming changed the game. It changed everything.”

Janssen was adamant within her executive producer position here, that unlike with many of her previous acting jobs, that she would have an active role in crafting who Betty would be for the screen.

“I want to have a say over who she is, how she dresses, everything,” Janssen said. “I’m an executive producer and I’m co-designing my own costumes. I’m going to do a music video and actually sing and dance in it. It ended up being such a rich experience, which I hadn’t anticipated when I said yes to it. But ultimately, I wear so many different hats on it and I feel I’m so proud of what we accomplished and what I personally added to the series, enriching Betty as a character.”

She added: “In my almost 30 years of experience as an actor, what I’ve learned is that I’ve had to fight for the characters because most of the time they were written by men. They were underwritten characters, they were one-dimensional, they were misunderstood. Then, we’re like – Alright, bring me in. The knowledge of what it’s like to be a woman, the knowledge of what it’s like to be underestimated and knowledge of all of those things put together. I really got to work with that in the most fun and exciting way on Amsterdam Empire.”

When it came to performing as Betty for the screen, Janssen wanted to make sure that people could understood her character’s ways and reasoning for the questionable things she does on the drama series. “The underlying pain, because honestly, I think being cheated on is one of the worst things in the world, but then to be cheated on publicly, where everyone knows about it. Whenever I read these things in the papers about people, I just so empathize with those people – like how painful that must be, you know?”

Throughout the many characters Janssen has brought to the screen over the past three decades, she says she always learns something new about either herself or a character with the acting muscle that she is able to bring to each character. With Amsterdam Empire, Janssen loved how “unpredictably crazy” Betty was, which she says she could identify with, but also sees a clear contrast between herself and her new Netflix character.

Janssen said with Betty in mind, “I’m a very different person and she screams for attention in a way that I would never, but I do love her fashion and I’m very proud of her.”

Being the seasoned actor that she is within the entertainment industry, when I asked Janssen what modern trends she is seeing that she is enjoying around the business today and if there are any parts of Hollywood from yesterday that she wishes were still in place, she referenced the films of the 1920s and 1930s, “when women were protagonists. All those comedies from that time where women were glamorous, they were funny, they were irreverent. They were the leads. Those movies were centered around these women and they were allowed to be so many things. It’s so interesting to see how we went from the 20s and 30s to now, going backwards. I’m like – Wait, why did we go in the wrong direction here? The flip side of that is in my experience in the business, is that seeing in the last 10-15 years, the strides we’ve made in diversity in film, I have to say, I find that so wonderful to see. I’m not saying we’re there yet, but I’m seeing huge strides.”

Janssen also shared that when she first started acting in the U.S., all she saw were white men on film crews. “Now, you come to set and it’s just not like that anymore. So, it’s wonderful to see. I think we do have to celebrate the success in that area. I would say bring back more female-driven content.”

Janssen’s performance as Jean Grey, which she was first introduced as in 2000’s X-Men, is still arguably her most iconic character to date. Having such a lasting impact on moviegoers, I wondered why Janssen believes that audiences still resonate with her superhero depiction and what it means to her to have played a character that has maintained such longevity and continues to receive vocal admiration from fans these 25 years later.

“It’s super flattering and wonderful.” Janssen said of her X-Men fanbase. “When I was cast as Jean Grey, not knowing anything about those comic books and then starting to read them for research and realizing – Oh, this is so interesting because this is just about a group of people who feel ostracized. They feel like outsiders. They don’t belong in the society. That’s this universal theme of how we all feel in life. We all kind of feel like we are outsiders and we don’t quite belong. I want to give credit to for Bryan Singer and the creators of the first X-Men film. The emphasis was on making these people human, with flaws and insecurities, who happen to have superpowers, rather than the other way around. So, I think that may be part of the reason for the longevity.”

With the Marvel Cinematic Universe having expanded more and more over the years, including with the upcoming Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars, does Janssen have any interest to reprise her Jean Grey role any time soon?

“I don’t even know if that’s worth thinking about,” Janssen said, “I mean, I played her over five movies. I’m incredibly grateful for the experience. I know they brought some of the other characters back over some of the other movies. I think I’ve been so lucky in the fact that I’ve done – including The Wolverine film – I’ve been in five of them and really got to explore. Could I have explored more? Could we have explored more with Jean Grey? Yes, absolutely – and with The Phoenix, but these are big ensemble casts and there’s only so much time that we can spend on them. It’s been a wonderful experience and I just am grateful for all the time that I’ve spent.”

Looking ahead, Janssen recently finished filming a movie in Arkansas and has been working on one in Bulgaria, with another project scheduled next for her in Boston.

For today’s emerging young Hollywood stars who are now experiencing the joys and the downfalls that come with fame – yet unlike when Janssen was coming up in Hollywood, now adding the pressures and expectations around social media. Janssen herself has chosen against having social media, saying that she is “blissfully ignorant in that area. It feels as an outsider, I’m not on it, but it feels incredibly toxic. I don’t think I’m made for it. I think I’m too sensitive and I think it would become too time-consuming. I think it would be too destructive in my life. And so, I opted out and just do not participate in it.”

As for the best advice that Janssen would give to today’s rising stars? “I would say for anyone who starts as an actor is that authenticity is really the most important part. I think in the beginning of one’s career, and very much that was true for me as much as anyone else, it’s like everything that makes you different – my name, my height, my looks. Am I Russian? Am I Dutch? I don’t look American, I don’t look Dutch. That’s the part where people are like – I don’t know what to do with her. Ultimately, when you stand your ground and you go – But watch me! I am me and I am authentic and I’m going to have you catch-up to who I am, rather than conform and try to become something to fit in.”

With all seven episodes of Amsterdam Empire now available to stream on Netflix, I left Janssen with my signature interview question, wondering what she would say to her character Betty, if only she could.

“I think that I would say – I feel you and I get you and I understand you. Betty, I really felt like she didn’t feel supported in her life. We see Betty and we know nothing about her. She doesn’t have a family, she doesn’t have a friend. She has to steal the dog, basically, to have any kind of companionship. I had to fight for her to be seen as a whole character and I’m proud of what I was able to do with what I was given, because she didn’t have a fair fight.”