Famke Janssen was at Wednesday’s premiere for Taken 3 when asked about comments recently made by Russell Crowe. Her first reaction was priceless.
“That’s interesting,” the 50-year-old told reporters on the red carpet.
“I don’t remember him being female,” she quipped a few seconds later.
It was during a recent interview that Crowe, who is also 50, said he was “too old” to reprise his Gladiator role. The Oscar winner also noted that his female counterparts should embrace their ages, too, when signing on for films.
“I think you’ll find that the woman who is saying that [the roles have dried up] is the woman who at 40, 45, 48, still wants to play the ingénue,” Crowe remarked. “And can’t understand why she’s not being cast as the 21-year-old.”
Famke Janssen on Russell Crowe: "Don't remember him being female!": http://t.co/xrKOPVPPAl
— Us Weekly (@usweekly) January 9, 2015
Janssen further elaborated on Crowe’s remarks.
“When you compare it to the 1920s and ’30s, it’s a shame what’s happened since then. That was the golden age for women in film,” she said. “They were allowed to be smart, funny, quirky, dramatic, whatever you name it… that’s clearly not the case anymore. If you look per movie the number of male parts and female parts–and I know because I even directed one myself [2011’s Bringing Up Bobby] and put a female [Milla Jovovich] in the lead. It’s really rare [for women to take the lead].”
“The good news is,” Famke Janssen continued, “it’s changing and it’s changing largely because a lot of the shows… are turning to women for female driven story lines and plots. I think that’s a really great departure from where we were.”
Janssen wasn’t the only female actor who reacted to Russell Crowe’s recent comments.
Zero Dark Thirty actress Jessica Chastain said Crowe is “getting his foot stuck in his mouth.”
Meryl Streep, on the other hand, defended Russell Crowe, saying his words had been misconstrued.
Even though Fame Janssen gets killed off during Taken 3 (Don’t cry ‘spoiler.’ This is even obvious in the trailer.) there is nothing about her age that says she shouldn’t or couldn’t play her role. She even dished about it at the premiere on Wednesday night.
“Before I read the script they already told me,” she said. “And I said, ‘How dead?’ And they said, ‘Dead.’ And I said, ‘How quickly?’ So we had a negotiation about it, but somebody had to take the bullet, figuratively speaking, and I took it. I took the high road and said ‘I’ll be the one.’ It’s the third and final installment and I’m thrilled to go to make it a better story line so nobody gets taken.”
Maybe Russell Crowe will go see Famke Janssen in Taken 3, and perhaps eat a bit of–um, crow?