Famke Janssen attends a masterclass conversation at Malta’s Mediterrane Film Festival on June 25, 2026. Courtesy of Mediterrane Film Festival Famke Janssen is impressed by Kane Parsons and Curry Barker.
“It’s paradigm shifting,” the veteran movie star said last week during a masterclass conversation at Malta’s Mediterrane Film Festival in Valletta. “These are two young guys who … built their own audiences on YouTube. They had a vision and didn’t go to a studio with their cup asking for money. They just took their own careers in their hands and for very little money created movies that are incredibly creative, entertaining and found huge audiences. I’m so thrilled to see that. And they’re analog, they’re not AI driven or CGI heavy films.”
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To nail the point, Janssen pointed out how Parsons’ Backrooms featured a real-life labyrinth of practical sets. “Backrooms is like Stanley Kubrick on crack,” she quipped. Moderator John Ross of Vanity Fair then asked the actress, who experienced global stardom thanks to a long-running turn as Jean Grey in X-Men, whether Parsons should get a shot at directing an X-Men installment. “Absolutely,” she said. “[Their success] just opened a door, not just for them, but for other people to say, ‘We don’t have to go with this old-fashioned system where we make a movie for $300 million.’”
Janssen during a masterclass chat with Vanity Fair’s John Ross at Malta’s Mediterrane Film Festival June 25, 2026. The Dutch model-turned-actress touched down in Malta following an appearance at Spacecon 2026. While there, she sat for a conversation with Nerdtropolis during which she said that Marvel “made a mistake” by not bringing her back as Jean Grey for December’s Avengers: Doomsday. While that comment did not come up during her conversation at the Mediterrane Film Festival, Ross did ask her whether or not she would be open to ever returning for the blockbuster franchise.
“I’m always open to any opportunity or role or reprising something I’ve done when there’s something good to play and I can do something with it,” she explained during the career-spanning 90-minute conversation (that also covered her nerve-wracking audition for James Bond installment GoldenEye). “I don’t know that I would ever want to narrow down anything of how something is supposed to go. It’s whatever fits into your life in those moments. It’s incredible that I’ve been part of a franchise like that where I did five movies, including The Wolverine, the Taken series where I’ve done three and a series for Netflix called Hemlock Grove where I did three seasons. I feel very blessed that I’ve been able to come back and revisit characters that I played. I’m always open to anything.”
One thing she’s not open to? Social media.
“I remember Greta Garbo with her famous words, ‘I want to be left alone.’ That’s been my journey in life. I’m not on social media. I haven’t done the traditional ‘look at me’ kind of [thing]. I have a different take on celebrity. Especially as actors, I feel that the less you know about us, about me in particular, the more I am able to show you who I am as that character,” she said, adding that she’s never even looked at social media. “Now everyone is a celebrity. We’re now living in this oversaturated time of literally everyone turning a camera onto themselves going, ‘Look at me, me, me. I’m on Instagram. I have this many followers.’”
None of that appeals to her, she said. “I personally really value my privacy more than anything. I guard it like Fort Knox because I feel that this is my tool — this endless source of creativity comes from within — and unless I guard that like crazy and if I let people in with all their criticism and all their negativity and all of that, it’s going to change who I am.”
Famke Janssen speaks to Vanity Fair’s John Ross during a masterclass conversation at Malta’s Mediterrane Film Festival on June 25, 2026. THR Newsletters
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