Monday, March 10, 1997
FILM:
‘Golden’ Janssen has eye out for roles that will strengthen her
skillsBy Aimee Phan
Daily Bruin Contributor
Some actors will stop at nothing to win a role. If an actor
feels passionate enough about playing a certain character, there is
nothing that will stop him or her from trying to win the part.
For Famke Janssen, the role of struggling working mother Rachel
Montana in this Friday’s upcoming movie "City of Industry" had to
be hers.
"I got the feeling at the end of one of my auditions (for "City
of Industry") that I maybe wasn’t going to get the part," Janssen
says. "So I called my agent and said ‘I get the feeling that
something is up, I’m not sure what it is, but get me back in the
room because I really want to get this part.’ So they got me back
in the room, and I came in wearing a K-mart uniform, something my
character Rachel would probably wear, and told them, ‘You’ve got to
give me this part and I’ll tell you why.’ So I talked for half an
hour and convinced them."
Director John Irvin was impressed by Janssen’s readings and
offered her the role.
"Famke was just extraordinary," Irvin says. "Nobody could have
played it better. She just took the role when she was reading,
nobody could have denied it to her."
While Janssen has acted in several feature films before, her
breakout role came in playing the seductive assassin Xenia Onatopp
in "Goldeneye," last year’s addition to the James Bond series.
Following the afterglow of "Goldeneye," Janssen was eager to move
away from any stereotype Hollywood may have given her and began
choosing roles to broaden her range. Unfortunately, finding another
good project was harder than she expected.
"It’s frightening to me how difficult it is to get a part,"
Janssen says. "I had no idea how hard it would be and if I had had
any idea, I still would have done it, but maybe I would have
psyched myself up a little bit more for it. I still feel at a place
where I still have to fight to get what I want."
Janssen believes that her glamorous turn in "Goldeneye" and her
previous career as a model may have played in preventing her from
receiving certain roles. She understands how it may be hard for
casting directors to see her in different parts.
"Although I didn’t have to deal with the model-turn-actress
thing, I still have to deal right now with this
Bond-girl-trying-to-turn-actress thing," Janssen says. "You have to
use your imagination to see if somebody can play a certain role and
how broad your range is. And that’s something that they didn’t know
about me. Nobody knows, not even I know, how big my range is going
to be. I’m still experimenting as I go along."
Another difficulty is finding a script that would be more than
just playing a two-dimensional glamour queen. Janssen has no
interest in doing a film that requires gratuitous nudity with
little or no characterization.
"I have no interest in being exploited," Janssen explains.
"That’s a real challenge for an actress, to not be exploited. I’m
just going to keep looking for as many different roles I can find
in different genres. That’s my goal. I’ve had a pretty varied
career so far."
Her goal was finally reached after picking up the script for
"City of Industry." After reading the role of Rachel Montana, a
bank robber’s wife who is left to take care of her family after her
husband is killed, she instantly knew this was a role she had to
play.
"I really wanted this part," Janssen says. "It was the perfect
thing after ‘Goldeneye.’ I was looking for something completely
opposite of it. But after reading all these scripts and receiving
all these offers, nothing really appealed to me in a sense that it
was not different enough. I liked Rachel because of the emotional
journey that she goes through in the movie."
Janssen was especially attracted to her character’s personal
strength and steely resolve to keep her family together. She also
admired her character’s rational personality in a movie filled with
trigger-happy bank robbers and assassins.
"I think she really is the only stable force in a very unstable
world," Janssen explains. "She’s trying very hard to remain stable
where everything keeps falling out from underneath her. Her husband
is sort of a fuck-up and completely irresponsible. She’s trying to
raise children, make money, and keep her family together. I really
like the fact that she’s trying so hard to do that."
While playing a strong female role was appealing enough for
Janssen, another added perk in "City" was getting the chance to
co-star with Oscar-nominee Harvey Keitel, an actor she admires
immensely.
"I have a small list of actors that I want to work with and he’s
one of them," Janssen says. "He’s very interesting on screen and to
work with. He’s unpredictable and that’s one of my favorite
qualities in an actor. You never know what’s going to come
next."
She also appreciated Keitel’s acting method, which required
absolutely no rehearsing before shooting a scene.
"Harvey doesn’t really like to rehearse and I’m a big fan of it
now," Janssen says. "The moment you play a scene too many times,
which you do anyway with all the takes, all the spontaneity is
taken out of it. I just want to try to do my homework, know what
everything is about, and then remain open (during shooting) and see
what happens."
Janssen is proud of her acting experience in "City" and hopes
that it is only another highlight in a career filled with strong
roles and opportunities to act with such acclaimed actors and
directors. But she knows that it is still an up-hill battle to win
the roles that she wants to play.
"I’ve been rejected so many times, it happens all the time,"
Janssen admits. "Acting has to do with so many different things,
but most of all, it’s whether or not you look right for the part.
It’s as simple as that. Of course, I’m not going to fit in with
every single role. I’m not going to be able (to) play every single
character, especially not according to other people, sometimes not
even to myself. But I have to have the confidence, otherwise I
can’t even go into the room (to audition)."
As for the future, Janssen wants to continue enduring the
arduous audition processes in hopes of finding more great film
projects.
"If it becomes too frustrating, I’ll try other things, but … I
just want to keep growing," Janssen says.
Orion Pictures
Famke Janssen plays Rachel Montana in John Irvin’s "City of
Industry."