Famke Janssen has blamed her failure to be cast in the new X-Men movie on Hollywood’s sexist agenda towards older women.
The Dutch actor, who starred as psychic mutant Jean Grey in three X-Men movies and has had cameos in several others, said she could not understand why Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart had been given key roles as older versions of series stalwarts Magneto and Professor X in recent instalments of the superhero saga, while she had not.
The 2014 X-Men film, Days of Future Past, featured different versions of the warring mutants in alternate timelines, with Michael Fassbender and James McAvoy playing the younger iterations in a 1970s setting.
However, the film’s sequel, the 1980s-set X-Men: Apocalypse, features Game of Thrones actor Sophie Turner, 20, as a young Jean Grey. Janssen was not cast.
“Women, it’s interesting because they’re replaced, and the older versions are never to be seen again,” Janssen told Entertainment Weekly. “Whereas the men are allowed to be both ages. Sexism. I think that I should be back along with my younger version and the way that we’ve seen it with Magneto and Professor X.”
Janssen, 51, said she had tried to discuss a return for the older Grey with producers but had not received a response.
“I have not heard any feedback on that, other than total radio silence,” she said.
Janssen’s version of Jean Grey did return briefly for a cameo at the end of Days of Future Past to illustrate the fact that her character had been resurrected, after a time-travelling mission by Wolverine in the 1970s effectively reset the timeline. However, the appearance was more fleeting than those made by McKellen and Stewart.
The actor also appeared as a figment of Wolverine’s imagination in 2013’s The Wolverine, with star Hugh Jackman lamenting Grey’s death in 2006’s X-Men: The Last Stand.
Despite her comments on sexism, Janssen said she was looking forward to seeing Turner’s interpretation of Grey.
“She emailed me before she started filming wanting some pointers,” she said. “And I said, ‘You don’t need any. You’re perfect. You’re great.’ So I can’t wait to see the movie and what she’s done with it.”
Janssen’s comments were published as ageism and sexism remain a hot-button topic in Hollywood. Earlier this month a survey of 2,000 movies by Polygraph revealed women are given less dialogue in American films the older they get, while male actors get more lines the older they become, up to the age of 65.
