Do we like Famke Janssen?
Our score: 7 out of 10. A clean record with no harmful words or company and no court trouble, held back from the top band because the good-deeds trail I could open is thin.
Famke Janssen was plucked out of Amsterdam at 19 and became a model, with covers of Elle, Marie Claire and Mirabella in the late 80s. In her early twenties she stepped back from that and enrolled at Columbia University to study creative writing. Then came acting, and a Dutch import turned up as a Bond villain.
That Bond villain, Xenia Onatopp in GoldenEye (1995), made her a household name overnight, and she says it was rough. She described feeling “thrown to the wolves” by the press and said fame “comes at a price”. She chose to work on her own terms, which meant earning less, steering clear of famous partners and staying off social media.
The harm check came up clean. Searches on LGBTQ+ issues, vaccines, climate, immigration and politics turned up nothing from her either way, and no pattern of grievance, conspiracy talk or dodgy company. That is a thin record rather than a glowing one, so take it as a pass on what's there, not a deep dive into her politics.
Her best-known stand is about Hollywood. In 2016 she told the Entertainment Weekly podcast that sexism was behind her absence from X-Men: Apocalypse, because women get recast while men are allowed to be both ages. She said her pitch to appear alongside Sophie Turner's younger Jean Grey got “total radio silence”. It's a fair point, made without trashing the younger actress.
The latest chatter is all Marvel. She has said Disney never approached her about returning as Jean Grey, answering “Never. Never ever.” At SpaceCon in June she said Marvel made a mistake, adding “but hey, who am I?” Some fans think she's hiding a return, and she has joked she is bad at keeping secrets. Avengers: Doomsday opens on 18 December, so we'll all find out.
On the good-person side there are no lawsuits, convictions or credible allegations in what I found. She has a Netflix Dutch crime drama, Amsterdam Empire, out since October 2025. I couldn't open a source for her charity and water advocacy, so I'm not counting it here. That is honestly the whole list.