Asked whether Kane Parsons should get to direct an X-Men film, Famke Janssen answered in one word. “Absolutely,” she said.
Janssen, who played Jean Grey in five X-Men movies, was talking with moderator John Ross of Vanity Fair during a masterclass at the Mediterrane Film Festival in Valletta, Malta, last week. Parsons made Backrooms. His collaborator on it was Curry Barker.
She had gushed about the pair before Ross got to the question. “It’s paradigm shifting,” she said. “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 paid for their own careers, she said, and made movies for very little money that turned out “incredibly creative, entertaining” and drew huge audiences. Both films, she added, are analog, not AI driven or CGI heavy.
She pointed to the real-life labyrinth of practical sets in Backrooms. Her summary: “Backrooms is like Stanley Kubrick on crack.”
The bigger point, for her, was what the success makes possible. “It 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.’”
Would she return?
Ross also asked if she would ever go back to the franchise. Janssen kept the door open without promising anything. “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 said. She counts herself lucky to have revisited characters: five X-Men movies including The Wolverine, three Taken films, and three seasons of Netflix’s Hemlock Grove.
Earlier, at Spacecon 2026, she told Nerdtropolis that Marvel “made a mistake” by not bringing her back as Jean Grey for December’s Avengers: Doomsday. That did not come up in Malta. The 90-minute conversation also covered her audition for GoldenEye, which she called nerve-wracking.
One thing she has no interest in is social media. She has never looked at it, she said, and she guards her privacy “like Fort Knox.”
Sources
- Famke Janssen Says ‘Backrooms’ Filmmaker Kane Parsons Should “Absolutely” Direct an ‘X-Men’ Film
- Famke Janssen wants ‘Backrooms' filmmaker to direct an ‘X-Men' film
