As the casting process heats up to find a new 007, Famke Janssen, who starred opposite Pierce Brosnan in 1995’s GoldenEye, has recalled her nerve-wracking audition to land the part as Xenia Onatopp in the iconic James Bond franchise.
“I became one of three, maybe four, finalists, and I was flown to London for a screen test with Pierce Brosnan. I remember being so nervous because I’d never done a screen test in my life, and this was a Russian character with an accent,” Janssen, 61, explained during a masterclass conversation with Vanity Fair’s John Ross during the Mediterrane Film Festival in Malta last week. She landed the audition as she had been filming a role in Clive Barker’s Lord of Illusions for Bond studio MGM, and studio executives had been impressed with her dailies. “I didn’t sleep the whole night. … I just sort of surrendered, and everything [my acting coach Harold Guskin] taught me, I took with me. And the rest is history.”
Janssen with Vanity Fair’s John Ross at Malta’s Mediterrane Film Festival on June 25, 2026, as a clip from Martin Campbell’s GoldenEye plays on the big screen.
Courtesy of Mediterrane Film Festival
It was a pivotal moment for the franchise as Brosnan was stepping into the lead role for what would be his first of four 007 installments, and the first Bond film following a six-year hiatus. Brosnan took over from Timothy Dalton (and paved the way for Daniel Craig). It was also a coup, to say the least, for Janssen, a Dutch talent who started her career as a model before moving to New York to study creative writing and literature at Columbia University. Prior to landing the Bond gig, she had done only a handful of bit parts in films and TV shows, including Fathers & Sons (her breakout role), Melrose Place and Star Trek: The Next Generation.
