Famke Janssen Biography

Famke Janssen (born November 5, 1965) is a Dutch-born actress.

Janssen hails from Amsterdam. When she moved to the U.S. in 1984 she began her professional career as a model and worked for Yves Saint Laurent. After studying stagecraft at Columbia University she moved to Los Angeles where she appeared in guest roles on TV series (such as Star Trek: The Next Generation and Melrose Place). Soon after, she appeared in the first Pierce Brosnan James Bond film, GoldenEye, making an impression on the cinema world as Xenia Onatopp. She is best known for her role as Jean Grey in X-Men and X2, and also by the movies Lord of Illusions, Rounders, and Deep Rising.

She speaks Dutch, English, French and German.

In 2006, she will reprise her role of Jean Grey in the highly anticipated film X-Men 3.

Janssen also had a prominent role in the second season of the popular TV show Nip/Tuck, as seductive and manipulative life coach Ava Moore. This character was memorably revealed to be a beautiful male-to-female post-operative transsexual in later episodes.