Hollywood Popular Artists

Sep 28th 2012, 21:00

Famke Janssen is most well-known for her roles as a femme fatale in Peirce Brosnan's first movie as 007, "GoldenEye," as Jean Grey in the "X-Men" movies, and as Liam Neeson's wife in "Taken," but most recently, she's turned her sights toward writing and directing, something she's been passionate about for 15 years.

Her first film, "Bringing Up Bobby," which stars Milla Jovovich, Bill Pullman, and Marcia Cross, opens in limited release tomorrow, and Janssen spoke with MTV News' Josh Horowitz about the pressures that come with finally revealing her personal work to the public.

"There are many mixed feelings going on because it took about five years from beginning to end, coming up with the idea, writing the story, getting the cast together, the financing, which was the biggest headache, as you can imagine, especially during an economic depression," Janssen said. "Traveling the world to festivals with it and now finally it coming out in New York, which of course is my city. This is where I live. It's fantastic."

The next step for Janssen will be facing what the critics have to say, something she has had trouble with in the past. "I never read reviews, and I stopped that early on, when I was called everything from 'a black hole' to I don't know what else," she said. "I learned my lesson pretty early on, and I should do the same thing now, but everything keeps getting sent to me. I can't help once in a while. I peek at something that's written about it. The reviews haven't come out yet, so who knows? I should know better, and I should stay away."

Back when Janssen was just on the cusp of breaking out as an actress, she considered giving up acting for film school. It just so happened that she got her role in "GoldenEye" shortly after being accepted into AFI for screenwriting. Since then, she's been looking for a way back. "So I wrote a couple of screenplays, got them out of my system. They were terrible," she said. "Thank God, I did that first. Then I wrote 'Bringing Up Bobby, and it took forever to try to get this thing off the ground, but it ended up finally being the one that I finally got made. Hopefully, the next one will be a little less painful, but probably not."