interview Famke Janssen
chatted with Nathaniel R on April 25th, 2008 @ Keystone Cinemas
Famke
Janssen on Turn the River, Nip/Tuck and de-glamming career moves |
Continued from Page One
Famke Janssen on Turn the River
FAMKE: It was a really natural process somehow. We met on The Treatment. We became really good friends. We kept hanging out after the movies, having dinners or hanging out with his wife and my boyfriend, whatever. And then he, at some point, presented this script.
I knew he was writing something. I never presumed I was even going to be playing a bit part in the film let alone the lead. He told me he sort of wrote it with me in mind and…
NATHANIEL: That’s so flattering.
FAMKE: So flattering. It’s funny I don’t know where he got it from. Obviously Kailey resembles –there’s no resemblance to me as a person --but a great character to play, a wonderful opportunity.
NATHANIEL: One thing that was sort of funny to me, and I hope you won’t take offense to this, there’s all that dialogue about her not looking good but you’re so beautiful.
FAMKE: Oh but I look terrible in the movie. And trust me…
NATHANIEL: It’s hard for you to look terrible.
FAMKE: We went through some great lengths to look really bad. I’m wearing a hair piece in the film. We didn’t have the money for anything. I wanted a wig because I wanted it to look, you know, crappier. So I thought a bad haircut with a bad wig. My hair was really long at the time. We didn’t have money for it. So, one day I said ‘OK, I have a great idea… maybe it’s a terrible idea. But lets try it anyway.’ I took the hairdresser to this really cheap wig place in New York. And I tried to just --like the top part, like a rug -- and I put it on my head and let my own natural hair fall below it. What it did was that the quality ...the quality of the hair is really bad. It’s like polyester or something, a polyester shiny weird top and it’s a slightly different color than my own hair.
We made my own hair really greasy. I didn’t wear makeup which on film --it's really hard to not wear makeup. Everybody wears makeup, even guys go in the makeup trailer and get their make up, you know?
NATHANIEL: It’s true. It’s true.
FAMKE: We just did everything to make her look crappy.
NATHANIEL: It’s just a thing with actresses you know. The “de-glam”
FAMKE: Yeah.
NATHANIEL: People have like these killer roles and ‘I want to look not as beautiful as I usually look’. It was kind of fun to think about that…
FAMKE: Of course. There’s that.
NATHANIEL: …because there’s all that dialogue about how bad you look but you’re a beautiful woman, obviously. It’s just kind of a funny thing…
FAMKE: Right but I… I mean, in talking to people about the part in the beginning. People would look at me. ‘Oh, you can’t play –I mean, you’re too glamorous you can’t play that.’ And I thought‘if my own friends tell me this, I’m really going to have to go the extra mile to make this work.
If I had walked into the movie the way I look in my normal life. You know I tend to just –I wear feminine clothes. I’m not that character. I had to go and really stretch myself in that way. And by the same token I think what happens a lot and you see it in Hollywood --you saw it clearly when Charlize Theron did Monster...
NATHANIEL: Right, right.
FAMKE: Nobody paid attention to her acting abilities until she deglammed herself in a sense. You know I think that in all the years I’ve been acting I can maybe count on one hand the times I’ve been asked to play a lead in a film. Most of the time I support --mostly by my choice, by the way, because I wanted to play character parts and really develop my acting skills. But most of the time I still deal with hearing people say ‘Oh, well, she’s beautiful’ or ‘Oh, well, she’s this…’ but never… my acting doesn’t get as much attention as I would like it to get. So, you have to go this far sometimes in order to get people to pay attention.
NATHANIEL: You actually have had a wide variety of --not just roles but you've been in a wide variety of genres.
FAMKE: Yes.
Famke as Kate Wells in Love & Sex (2000)--->
NATHANIEL: You’ve had Love & Sex, romantic comedy. Obviously the dramas and the superhero movies. You basically run the gamut.FAMKE: Yes, I try.
NATHANIEL: One thing I wanted to ask. You’re from Amsterdam originally. You haven’t made a Dutch film?!
FAMKE: No, not yet. It still --somehow it hasn’t worked out yet.
NATHANIEL: Have you talked to directors?
FAMKE: My family is in the business too in Holland. I have a director for a sister and an actress who now is actually retired from acting but, yes. I’ve had some meetings or times when I flirted with the idea but nothing –the thing is that I didn’t start acting there so anything that’s coming my way now is not --you know, I built my career in the United States. I want to do something that’s as good there as I would be doing here.
NATHANIEL: When I heard that I was going to be meeting with you I was actually thinking of Black Book from last year with Carice van Houten. And that role was so good for an actress….
FAMKE: Right, I know.
NATHANIEL: ...and I thought Famke could totally do something like this. I love foreign films and I know you speak several languages. I just wondered.
FAMKE: I’ve been looking. I’ve been looking for a play. I live in New York. I’ve been looking for a play to be in as well. It’s competitive.
NATHANIEL: Right.
FAMKE: It’s extremely competitive. It’s hard to find good roles anywhere. I don’t discriminate. I take it from wherever I can. I was in Nip/Tuck for a season. Wherever the good work is I would… if it would mean it was going to be in Romania, I’ll shoot in Romania.
You know what I mean?
<--- Famke as Ava Moore on Nip/Tuck, a whole package of trouble...
NATHANIEL R: Nip/Tuck. Was that as crazy on set as it is onscreen?
FAMKE JANNSEN: Ryan Murphy [Nip/Tuck's creator] has an interesting crazy mind. He’s extremely creative … very fun to work with. He knows –I mean, he has a vision. And it’s his vision from beginning to end.
When he pitched it to me over the phone –all he said was ‘Well, Ava Moore is very glamorous, sort of duplicitous kind of like an Ava Gardner. She’s going to have a lot up her sleeve but we don’t exactly know…’ I said ‘You know what, you’re a crazy genius. I’ll do it.’ That’s really about as little as I knew.
NATHANIEL: I know you probably get asked this too much but I do want to talk about the X-Men very briefly.
FAMKE: Of course...
NATHANIEL: I grew up reading those comics and Phoenix was my favorite. Were you familiar with the storylines and how famous the storylines were before you made the movies?
FAMKE: Not before I made the movies but once I was hired, absolutely. I did all the research. I looked into it and I heard from people...
The Wrap Up
Famke on that Jean Grey/Phoenix arc in 'X-3', and what she's doing next...
