Famke Janssen Denies Doomsday, Teases a Dark Phoenix

Famke Janssen used a SpaceCon panel to insist she isn’t in “Avengers: Doomsday” while also telling Marvel Studios she’d love to return as Jean Grey—and that she’s ready to show “very dark Phoenix.”

When Famke Janssen stepped onto the stage at SpaceCon, the topic circled back to the same question again and again: where does she fit into Marvel’s next X-Men-era chapter?

Janssen didn’t sidestep it. She made it blunt—she is not in Avengers: Doomsday, and she’s not pretending otherwise. But the moment she pivoted to what she *can* imagine, the room stopped treating it like rumor and started treating it like a door left half-open.

“I really wish we had been able to explore more of that. ” Janssen said during the panel. speaking about what fans still haven’t fully gotten from Jean Grey and Phoenix on screen. Then she delivered the line that landed with the kind of certainty audiences came for: “If I had an opportunity. I would show you some really amazing Phoenix.”.

She followed immediately, with no distance between her words and the character she played: “Oh, yes. I am ready. I am ready to show you some Phoenix, some very dark Phoenix.”

That was the message—clear denial on one side, creative insistence on the other.

Janssen’s Phoenix pitch wasn’t vague fan-service. It was rooted in the way she described the split inside Jean Grey in X-Men: The Last Stand—how the story briefly let the two sides shift back and forth. with one still unmistakably Jean and the other darker and harder to control. She said she found that part especially interesting. and she wanted more of it—“because it was such a— she’s iconic and she’s so powerful and interesting.”.

Her answer about Phoenix came up in a wider question that fans often ask because it feels personal: which was more fun—her Bond villain Xenia Onatopp in GoldenEye or Phoenix in X-Men: The Last Stand. Janssen said she had more screen time to explore Xenia Onatopp than she ever had with Phoenix. From there, her case for returning as Jean Grey sharpened into something else: unfinished territory.

“I really wish we had been able to explore more of that,” she said.

Once the “dark Phoenix” door cracked open, the other half of the panel mattered just as much: Janssen returned to the Doomsday rumor directly, again and again, with a performer’s candor.

She had already gone on record saying she is not in Avengers: Doomsday. Near the end of the panel, with fan questions clearly circling the topic, she was asked a careful follow-up: was she good at keeping secrets?

Janssen laughed, then answered in the most practical way possible. “Terrible,” she said. “I am so bad at keeping secrets that I always say to everyone I’m the worst actor in the world because I, I just— it’s all on my face. You right away will read it.”

Then she added the line that felt aimed straight at Marvel Studios without sounding like a demand: “I think they made a mistake, but hey, who am I? I’m just a little me who thinks that.”

It’s a contradiction that reads like more than a throwaway: she says she isn’t part of the film. but she also believes she should have been. The tension wasn’t only about casting. It was about what fans want from a character whose cinematic Phoenix story never fully arrived where people thought it could.

In the same panel. Janssen also looked back at how she joined the original X-Men before the franchise became the global force it is now. She said she had never heard of X-Men before the role came her way. At the time, she was filming Love & Sex with Jon Favreau, and her agent kept calling her about an audition.

“I was like, what’s X-Men?” Janssen said.

That changed once she learned Bryan Singer was directing. On her day off, she went to a comic book store and asked about the title. “The reaction was priceless. ” she said. describing how the people in the store looked at her and responded like she’d missed something obvious: “They looked at me like. where have you been?”.

She also spoke warmly about the original X-Men cast and the bond built over several films. mentioning working with Patrick Stewart. Hugh Jackman. James Marsden. and the rest of the ensemble. She shared a full-circle story about Stewart that she still carries with her: before X-Men. she appeared opposite Stewart on Star Trek: The Next Generation. when she was new to the business and still adjusting to acting in English. Stewart told her, as advice she still uses, to look into one eye instead of shifting between both. Years later, they reunited as Jean Grey and Professor X, and Janssen called Stewart “Professor X, the one and only.”.

The panel also tapped one of the biggest fan debates around the Jean Grey, Wolverine, and Cyclops dynamic. Janssen joked as the crowd weighed Jean Grey alongside Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine and James Marsden’s Cyclops. She had the room vote between Jackman and Marsden, and she said, “I don’t know that I could pick. They should both want me, that’s all.”.

She added another Marsden story when asked who made people laugh on the X-Men sets. She said Marsden could imitate anyone, including her and Hugh Jackman. She described how Marsden did a full skit on Jackman. how Jackman eventually heard about it. and how he asked Marsden to perform it in front of him.

Janssen tied those moments to the larger feeling of the original work—she said the shoots were long, and the cast traveled the world together to promote them. She said they watched each other go through major life moments: kids, marriages, divorces, career changes.

That history—work turned into relationships—makes the Phoenix conversation hit harder. This wasn’t a distant celebrity wish. It was someone talking about a character she knows, and a role she says she still wants to push further.

And she spoke that way throughout. Beyond Marvel. Janssen talked about her career across multiple projects. including GoldenEye. Taken. Nip/Tuck. The Faculty. House on Haunted Hill. Rounders. How to Get Away with Murder. Hemlock Grove. and Amsterdam Empire. She reflected on leaving the Netherlands. starting as a model. studying at Columbia University. and breaking through an industry that she said tried to define her too quickly. She described the challenges of being a foreign actress. having an accent. being tall. and having a name people didn’t always know how to pronounce.

She said GoldenEye opened doors, but it also created a new box. “My entire life, I think, has been about how do I get out of this box that somebody keeps trying to build around me,” Janssen said.

That mindset, she implied, is part of why she sounds hungry to play Phoenix again—because she doesn’t want to be limited by what was already done.

When asked about her work ethic. she said she takes every role seriously because she knows there is a long line of people waiting for the same opportunities. Unless she gives everything, she said, she should step aside and let someone else take the job. “What I do, I take very seriously, but with humor,” Janssen said.

For Jean Grey, that matters.

Janssen gave Marvel Studios a clear message at SpaceCon: she is not in Avengers: Doomsday. She said she’s bad at keeping secrets. She said she thinks Marvel may have made a mistake by not calling her. And she was direct—she is ready to return as Jean Grey and show “very dark Phoenix.”

Now the question waiting in the open space between those lines is the one fans can’t shake: will Marvel Studios treat that as more than a convention moment, and let the Phoenix burn again on a bigger screen with the story Janssen says never fully came?

Famke Janssen Jean Grey Phoenix Avengers: Doomsday X-Men: The Last Stand SpaceCon Marvel Studios GoldenEye Xenia Onatopp Bryan Singer Patrick Stewart Hugh Jackman James Marsden